I like to combine holiday gatherings with DIY craft sessions for thrift and expedience purposes. I’m all for getting together with friends and celebrating the season, but that can get expensive and marking out time for various friend groups can leave you frazzled. Try hosting a craft party where you’ll benefit from friends’ creative holiday ideas and save money on decor while you’re at it. Wreath-making parties are fun, plus everyone ends up with totally unique, beautiful decorations, win win.
Ask folks to bring over their craft boxes (things they’re willing to share, of course), and join you for an afternoon of creating festive door decor. Here are some wreath-making party hosting ideas to get you going.
I attended a party last weekend hosted by my friend Robin. She had on hand these items:
- Snacks
- Tea with mulled spices
- Homemade kombucha
- Main greenery. She had lots of cedar branches and I told her I’d snag some pine branches from the Christmas tree lot for folks to use as well, free and fragrant! Other ideas for what to have on hand for greenery include rosemary branches, white sage branches, long pine branches or anything that will stay green for a month. Get greenery as close as possible to the gathering so they are still flexible to work into a wreath.
- Floral wire, a couple spool, a spool of heavier duty (but still bendable by hand) wire
- An array of wire cutters, pliers and a drill (in case you wanted to drill a hole into nuts or nature bits and string them with floral wire to your wreath)
She asked guests to bring:
- Wreath frame - at least one, but maybe an additional frame to make a wreath for a friend. Wire and grapevine frames aren’t usually more than a few dollars at craft, or even dollar, stores. My large wreath frame is two coat hangers wrapped around each other, for both size and stability.
- Scissors
- Wire cutters
- Glue guns, not necessary but can be helpful if affixing little flourishes
- Festive stuff like ribbons, bells, sparkly bits and bobs (aka holiday bling), feathers, dried pieces from nature – acorns, pecans and other nuts, pine cones
- Snacks, if we were so inclined, not required though
A few other tips for hosting:
1. Lay rag sheets or something down on your floor so you can just pick them up and shake them out after your wreath-tacular session.
2. Set up the branch sorting and cutting area outside or in a garage if possible and that will leave lots of room indoors for people to spread out and decorate their bare wreaths. There were 6 of us, which was about the max for a spacious indoor crafting area.
3. It helps to have someone on hand who’s made wreaths before, but that’s not necessary. It’s not rocket science.
4. Wine makes everything more fun. Ask friends to bring a bottle if this is a nighttime/weekend brunch kind of party.
Most of us didn’t end up spending any money at all and we had everything we needed to create really beautiful and very inexpensive wreaths! Here are my two wreaths, one for the front door:
And one for the much-used carport door:
Here are the other wreaths we made together; all are resting on her fence’s round knob (you might notice and wonder what it is in all the shots).
