Miniature Christmas Wreath with Pine Cone Tutorial

Still catching up this week due the thanksgiving holiday. So a quick tutorial on a simple Christmas wreath with Pine cones.

Gather your supplies

pine pick
some kind of greenery to fill the wreath. I used a vine called asparagas fern
acrylic paint : dark brown, white, green red
glue I used thick and tacky
wire for berries
paper card stock
paper punches. I used daisy and paw print
wire cutters
ribbon for bow
toothpicks
scissors

Cut a small portion of the pine pick to form a circle

Glue ends together and trim the length of the pine needles. Trim flat on the back of wreath.

Gather your filler greenery and trim off some small pieces. I liked the asparagas fern vine because there was two different colors of green to use.

Add small pieces to your wreath following the direction of the pine needles.

Glue them in as you are going. I fill mine up pretty full except where the to ends meet. I left this area less full. This is where the bow will go.

Next grab your paper and paper punches.

I used a natural paper card stock. You could save a step and use a dark brown card stock and skip one paint step. I just used what I had on hand.

The daisy vine paper punch I used the tiny petals and on the paw print I used the paw toe pads only.

Punch and separate a pile of pieces. You will need more of the small petals than the paw pads.

Okay gather your toothpick and apply glue to the end tip. Covering about a quarter inch of the tip. The toothpicks tapered end makes a good center point for the pine cones.

Apply three of the tiny petals to the tip of the toothpick. Fat end down and pointy end towards top.

Start layering more of the tiny petal punches around the tip. Moving down and flaring out slightly as go. After the second row, apply your tiny petals fat end facing up and pointy end down.

On the last row I used the oval paw pads to finish. I used a ball stylus to round them and placed them short side facing up. You don’t have to have the larger paw pad punches and your pine cone will be just a little bit smaller.

After drying (if you used the natural card stock) dry brush some dark brown on the outside of your pine cone.

After drying, dry brush white acylic to the out side edges.

Now make a few more pine cones for your wreath (I made 8 for mine) and clip them with some wire cutters off of the toothpick.

Make some berries for your wreath following the instructions from the Hollyberry vine tutorial.

Start by cutting a few pieces of the wire.

Strip the insulation from the end and expose the bare copper wires. Fan out the wires to separate them.

Dip the ends of each of the wires into glue to form a bead at the end.

Do this to all of your wires and let them dry.

Get your acrylic paints ready. I used a leaf green and barn red.

Start with the green and dip the glue bead into the green to coat.

Do all of the wire ends and let dry.

Next using the red or dip the tips to coat 3/4 of the ends. Leaving a little bit of the green showing at the top of the berry.

Let them dry and then either spray coat a clear finish or dip in a clear finish to add a shine to your berries.

Twist them into some berry clusters and clip into short lengths to glue onto your wreath.

Arrange your pine cones and berries as you like and glue into place. Be sure to leave room for the bow at the top of your wreath.

Now tie up a bow and glue into place. I used a cream silk ribbon and used the fork method to tie. This worked really well and made the bow tying really easy.

Ta dah..done and ready to add some holiday cheer to your mini scenes.