DIY a Fall Wreath Nobody Will Believe You Made Yourself
This fall wreath tutorial is easier than it looks, and the results are so good you may want to keep yours up all winter.
When I asked a Los Angeles floral designer who works for top-secret mega celebs to do a tutorial for Sunset on howto make a celebrity-worthy wreath at home, I knew she’d say yes. After all, Makenzie Kizis is my little sister.
Turns out it’s great to have a florist and flower lover in the family, but what she taught me while making this fall wreath is that just because you don’t have a Hollywood budget doesn’t mean you can’t DIY your way to a Hollywood-worthy front door.
Before we start, a funny story: When Makenzie asked me what size wreath I wanted to make, I said medium. So when she walked in my front door with a 24-inch grapevine base I thought, Wait, this thing is massive!
Then I realized super famous people have super-sized front doors so, of course, 24 inches is considered “medium” in her world. It turns out, however, that the size she chose turned my front door into a real show-stopper, which she knew it would.
In other words, before you decide what size wreath you want to make, ask yourself if you want to go big. After all, it’s not the size of the wreath, it’s the ambition of the wreath maker, right?
Meanwhile, I promise the fall wreath pictured, which my sister made in less than an hour, is easier than it looks. Even better, it’s so gorgeous I’m planning to keep mine up through the holidays.
How to Make It
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1 /9Deanna Kizis
Step 1: Gather Your Materials
To get started, you need a grapevine wreath, which can be found at Michaels, or most hobby stores.
As mentioned, the size you choose is important—not only in terms of how many flowers and plants you’ll need, but also how the wreath will look in its intended space—so think ahead. (And measure your front door!)
The good news: This type of base keeps the mechanics simple. “In general, I like the grapevine wreath because it’s easy,” Makenzie says. “You can just stick things in it, and I’m going to leave some empty spaces for asymmetry. This will create a crescent moon shape around the ring.”
To make this masterpiece, Makenzie also had pruning snips on hand—sharp scissors will work, too—and floral wire.
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Step 2: Pick Your Plants
The style and color palette Makenzie used is intentionally naturalistic, but it’s sophisticated, too.
“I knew I was doing great with my colors when I started getting compliments at the flower market,” she says.
By pairing sage green with burgundy, she elevated her scheme beyond the traditional orange and red. However, she says, “There’s no guideline on how a wreath should look. This one reflects my style, but yours is going on the front of your home so it should reflect you.”
For this wreath, Makenzie chose:
Sagebrush
Strawflowers
Broom corn
Cattails
Juniper
An oak branch with Spanish moss
Leucadendron ‘Safari Sunset’
Stemmed dried sponge mushroom
Pampas grass
In terms of quantity, you need to eyeball it according to the size of wreath you want to make, but Makenzie says it’s wise to purchase more than you think you’ll need so you have room to play and make mistakes.
To give you an idea of quantities, she arrived with about six stems of the sagebrush, Leucadendron, broom corn, and juniper, and we had ample leftovers. Two stems of pampas grass, four stems of cattails, one oak branch, and three stemmed dried mushrooms were enough, and she had one bouquet of strawflowers.
If budget is a concern, she has two recommendations: One, buy your flowers with a friend so you can split the cost of the materials (and make an afternoon of it). Two, forage. “You can find a lot of this stuff depending on where you live—sage, juniper, oak branches, these are common plants,” Makenzie says. “You can trim branches. Some of the best stuff is pretty leaves like maple leaves and strong stemmed woody herbs and plants like rosemary.”
For specialty items like strawflower, go to a local floral shop. Stemmed, dried sponge mushrooms can be found online and on Etsy.
Pro tip: If you end up with extra flowers like we did, create a complimentary bouquet or scatter small arrangements around your home. (Some can even be a single stem in a vase or glass.)
I took Makenzie’s advice and created little arrangements for everywhere from the dining room to the mantle to the bathroom. This pulled her botanical wreath theme throughout my home, which made it feel delightfully festive and put together.
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Step 3: Put the Big Branch on First
“I start with the boldest ingredient. Here that would be the wood branch because it will create the shape I want,” Makenzie says. “My filler will then be placed around it.”
To attach the branch, she simply pushed it between spaces in the grapevines; no floral wire required.
One key thing to remember: Don’t be afraid to go outside the boundaries of the circle. A traditional wreath might stick to the circle shape all the way around, but, says Makenzie, in a more modern arrangement, “the cool things happen outside and/or inside the circle. That’s what creates a sense of movement.”
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Step 4: Create a Crescent Shape and a Base for Your Focal Point
With the branch as the first layer, Makenzie layered in the darkest green she had—the juniper—as a background so the lighter colors could pop.
Next, she started creating a crescent shape with the lighter colored sage and pampas grass, moving up the grapevine wreath as she went.
While creating your crescent, layer in the plants in the direction they’re already growing. “Don’t try to force a plant into the shapeyou want it to go in. Put it where it will follow a natural curve,” she says. Yes, you can try floral wire, she adds but, “Mother Nature always wins.”
The crescent looks so professional I thought it would be too difficult to reproduce at home, but as I watched Makenzie pick up a branch of juniper, snip off the piece she wanted to use, and literally just thrust it into place in the grapevine wreath, I realized if you can draw a crescent moon, you can do this, too.
“Just start from the bottom and work up, layering as you go,” she said.
“I think people think that flowers are kind of a delicate thing, and so they’re scared to cut up a branch or hunt for the part they want to use,” she adds. “Don’t be afraid to chop stuff up. Floral design is just like any art medium. You need to take a chance.”
Once the greenery was in, Makenzie added tufts of pampas grass. To do this, she pulled back the fronds and trimmed the ones she wanted to use, but before layering it in to make another base for her focal point.
Pro tip: To keep pampas grass from falling apart, Makenzie sprayed it with hairspray. “Otherwise it sheds like crazy,” she says.
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Step 5: Use Wire to Create Groupings of Loose Materials
Since the broom corn wouldn’t hold together, Makenzie wrapped it with floral wire, then snipped it, leaving enough of a base to insert into the grapevine wreath. This was the only time the wire came into play.
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Step 6: Continue to Layer Your Focal Point
For this wreath, you need to create a focal point—a key part of your wreath that will capture the eye.
Keep in mind that while the focal point appears centered in this image, it’s actually off-center to the left, which gives this piece a botanical but modern vibe.
Dried sponge mushrooms attached to wooden stems which Makenzie trimmed until they were about 2 inches long were easy to place. She did the same with cattails.
Every now and then, I watched as she stepped back, examining the wreath like painter Bob Ross, then filling in gaps in the crescent with contrasting colors until it had a natural-looking balance. “You can always go back to an ingredient and add it in,” she says.
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Step 7: Add an Attention-Grabbing Element
Here, Makenzie continued to embellish her focal point with Leucadendron and cattails.
Finally, she poked in some strawflowers, which gave the wreath’s focal point the bright pop of color it needed.
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Step 8: Finishing Touches
Although Makenzie layered in extra strawflowers and Leucadendron on the crescent shape of our wreath, she reminds us to be sure not to spread pops of color all over.
“You don’t want your wreath to look polka-dotty,” she says. “It’s aesthetically pleasing when things are grouped together, the way they are in nature. Typically you don’t find one solo plant,” she added. “They always have a couple of buddies with them.”
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Step 9: Enjoy Your Work, and Expect Compliments
Making this wreath with my sister was not only a lesson in upping my DIY floral wreath game, it was also a reminder of how much fun it is to create one’s own front door decoration.
A DIY wreath is like a talisman, after all, telling all who enter that yours is a home that embraces personal expression, family, and creativity. For me, this one also expresses gratitude—especially to my sister, and the giving and talented woman she’s turned out to be.