Foraged Christmas Wreath | DIY

Christmas

Hey guys! Happy Wednesday!

Today I wanted to stop by and share a fun little project/tutorial I did last week. I love fresh Christmas wreaths but I never buy them because they're always so dang expensive. I have a few fake ones that I like and are really pretty, but they don't have that good smell that fresh ones have. Then I realized, duh! I have a forest behind my house and tons of evergreens! So I decided to make my own. I enlisted the help of my little sis to be my photographer/videographer (hey Tiffany!) and I created a tutorial to take you through the process in case you decide to make your own too!




We live in a pretty wooded area, and we have lots of cedars, sugar pines, and douglas firs growing on our property. One of the most fun and easiest steps of this project was gathering what I could from our backyard! But even if you don't have as easy access to trees as I do, there's other ways to go about it.

Maybe you live within driving distance of some woods. In some areas you need a permit to forage and other places it's free. Just call your local county, BLM, or forest service to find out what rules apply where you live. If you go adventuring to forage for your wreaths, just make sure to always tell someone where you're going, and even better, take someone with you too!

I've also heard you can sometimes find Christmas tree vendors that will sell their trimmings for cheap or you could use trimmings off of your own tree if you purchase a real one.




If you do forage for your greenery, just make sure you don't get too crazy. Don't go onto private property without permission, don't take to much off of any one spot on the tree, and leave the place as you found it. I found that I didn't really have to trim much at all off my trees, and I had way more than enough to make mine.





Even if you've never made a wreath before (like me!) it's actually pretty simple once you gather all your supplies. And it's so much cheaper than buying one! I went and spent around $7 on a few supplies and some faux berries (since those were the only thing I didn't have growing naturally here, maybe I need to plant some in the future, hmm?).

The things you'll need for your wreath are:

  • A Wreath frame (I used a 12 in.)
  • Green floral wire
  • Accents (optional: faux berries, ribbon, bows, pinecones)
  • Garden shears
  • Wire cutters (I just used my garden shears) 
  • Greenery trimmings (about 12 inches long) 
  • A Workspace cover (I used kraft paper to keep the pitch off my table)


The first thing you'll need is a frame unless you want it to be more loose and wild, in which case you could try making the wreath just out of your greenery, but I wanted that extra support (plus something to hang it by). I just used a basic metal one that I can re-use every year, but you could also choose a grapevine or other type of frame. You'll also need some floral wire (green to blend in), and any other accents you might want like pine cones, faux berries or ribbon. 

I used my garden shears on my floral wire, which is probably a no-no, but it was so thin I don't think it really hurt them. They do have wire that comes on a roll with a cutter, so that would be a really handy way to go if you didn't want to buy them separately.  

Once you have all of your greenery, all you have to do is start connecting it with your floral wire!




I gathered trimmings that were about 12-18 inches long and then I cut them down into smaller pieces.  They probably ended up being about a third to half that once I cut them up and started combing them into bunches. I would either do all one type or I would use a couple pieces of cedar, and add them to a piece or two of fir and wrap them together at the bottom with wire. 

Next I would use another piece of wire to wrap and secure it to my frame. After I got going I realized it was faster to make up my bunches of greenery and once I had several, add them to the frame. You want to work from top to bottom, layering each consecutive bunch over the bottom of the one before it to cover your wire.




After you work your way around the frame, you want to go back in and fill in any bare or thin spots with smaller bunches. Sometimes I'd used multiple types of greenery together but with smaller pieces and sometimes I would use one individual piece to fill in a small spot.

All you want to do is make sure that you're attaching them in a way that your wire will be hidden by other parts of the wreath. If you use the green wire it blends in pretty well though.


I also recommend picking it up off your workspace periodically so you can see how well everything is attached. I had some parts that wanted to fall a little from the top of the pieces, so I had to wire them on the tops too. That should only be a problem on one little section though, just because of the direction the greenery is going. 



After you have all of your greenery connected, it's time for accents! You can go as simple or elaborate as you want, but I opted for just a few faux berries and a couple of pine cones. My pine cones were almost completely closed up still, but I was able to wrap my wire in between the rows of petals (is that what you would call them?) and then use that same piece of wire to connect them to the wreath. And I wired my berries onto some smaller pieces of greenery then wired them to the frame too.




And you're done! Like I said, this project is so much fun and you can go as basic or ornate as you want to. It's a simple process either way, and it's a pretty quick project that you can do by yourself, or with friends and family. I plan on making it a yearly tradition now, and maybe sometimes I'll make a party out of it and invite all my girls over to make some too!

Hopefully it all made sense with the pictures and instructions, but I have a video too! You can watch me make mine, so it should make the process that much easier if you decide to make one too. 


I've been wanting to start creating some video content for the blog, so I made a youtube channel and I plan on doing more videos in the future if you guys like them! I love to watch videos, so definitely let me know if that's something you'd like to see more of :)

Alright, thanks so much for stopping by today, and I hope you enjoy your wreath making! Please share them with me if you do make them, email me or tag me on Instagram or Facebook because I'd love to see them! Have a great rest of your day friends!

Being Content in the Process

Currently

Today I just wanted to jump on here and write a little bit about some of our house progress, and how I've been feeling lately.

It's been eight and a half months since we bought our house and moved into the 5th wheel, and man does it seem like it's been forever! I have gone through different stages throughout the process, where sometimes it feels like things couldn't crawl any slower, and I'm going crazy wanting to be done, and other times where I'm good and excited about the process.

I haven't been able to pin point exactly what does it to make me move from one side to the other, but I've been back and forth a few times now haha. Right now I'm back in my, "I'm going stir crazy and I can't be in this trailer another day," moods.

This time I feel like it's the looming holidays that brought it about. Decorating for fall and Christmas are some of my favorite things to do, and originally I was really hoping we would be in the house by Christmas. Well, remodels rarely go according to plan (and I knew that) so we're looking at being in maybe in February? I'm hoping!

So I sit here in my camper and get discontent because all I want is to be in my house already. I miss having a full kitchen with more than a foot of counter space. I miss having a dishwasher. Heck, I miss having my dishes! I packed most of them away, and only kept the bare essentials, because when we moved we weren't expecting it to take this long. I actually miss being able to really cook and I'm so looking forward to having a full kitchen again.

I miss having a real bathroom, and space to spread out. And a front yard that isn't half trash pile/half construction mess. It seems like we're in that stage where everything is close enough that we can see it coming together and still so far away from being done.


But, I have to remind myself that I wanted this (so badly!) and it will all be worth it. One year of not getting to decorate much for the holidays, the pink camper carpet that I can't keep clean to save my life, and all of the hard work will pay off and it will barely be a blip in the radar years from now.

And I know we're super fortunate to get to do this. I'm sure there are tons of people out there who would love to have this opportunity! Plus, being discontent isn't going to make things go any faster, so I'm going to try to suck it up and be happy in this stage, even though it's hard.

And writing this has helped. Sometimes just getting it out is a relief, and if you have any tips or tricks for being content, send them my way! Maybe I just need to get focused and work harder on the house so we'll be in it that much sooner. Plus, that's less time I'm sitting in my trailer, right? ;)

As far as house progress goes, we have actually been getting quite a bit done lately! We are currently waiting on our roof to be installed, and we're starting to get back to inside projects. Dane worked on and mostly finished our front entry (at least for now) and his dad helped us out a ton by raising the ceilings in the old part of the house!



My priming and painting kind of hit a stand still because I got the flu, and now that I'm better the rains are starting! But this weekend looks like we will get a break, so I'm hoping to keep working on it then. And this week Dane has started working on electrical and we should be installing windows soon too!

So even though it's going to be a winter in a 5th wheel, things are trucking along and I'm really so excited about the way it's coming together :)

Thanks for stopping by and listening to my boo-boos! Now I'm off to work on something productive. Happy Wednesday!

The Forever Cottage Inspo: The Exterior

Before

This last weekend was a busy one for working on the house. Well, it's always busy I guess, but it's been a while since I actually worked long and hard on something myself, Dane's been doing most of the work lately. But he needed help putting up fascia board (the edge board you see that covers the end of the joists) and I started paint prep!

We get so much rain here in southern Oregon, I wanted to get the exterior painted before it really gets going. Usually it hits in October sometime, so we're kind of racing to get the roofing done and most of the exterior before that happens. It's still showing clear for the 10 day forecast though, so fingers crossed it will stay nice weather for a while!

There isn't really much I need to do to the new part of the house as far as prep before painting (although there will be a ton of caulking at some point soon), but the original part of the house really needed some attention before I could do any painting. It's obvious it hadn't been painted in a really long time, maybe over 20 years! And most of it was peeling and flaking off.

To get a good adhesion with the new paint, I had to get all of the loose stuff off, which required going over it with a pressure washer, going over it all by hand and scraping it, and then pressure washing one more time! It was as much work as it sounds. It took me three days!

Now that it's done though, it looks so much cleaner without all the flaky paint and cobwebs, in spite of all the missing paint, haha! And now I have a smooth slate for priming and painting. I wrapped that up today, and here's what it looks like now.




The plan is to start painting this week, and since I will definitely be sharing an update when that's done, I thought I'd show you some of my inspiration for it!

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I had a really hard time deciding on a color for the house, because I actually really loved the green it was originally, and I also love super dark colored houses. But when it came down to it, I decided to go with white, since I've been wanting a white house for years! I figured I'd regret it if I didn't do it.

We're also doing a gabled front entry, that will be enclosed on the sides and only open on the front. Our house is far from a Tudor style house, but I kept coming back to them for their front entries and so I took inspiration from them for ours. It's not built yet, but it will be done soon!

And lastly, I know we're doing a wood front door, and I got some brick on craigslist for our front steps and walkway.

It's going to be so exciting seeing the outside come together, and it's a pretty big check off the list. Soon, we'll be moving onto the interior, and man am I ready for that!

So what do you think? I know white houses are very trendy right now, but I just love them so much! Are you on the white house bandwagon too? What are some of your favorite exterior details?

Have a great rest of your day, and thanks for stopping by!
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The Forever Cottage: Demo and Where We Are Currently

Before
Today I thought I'd bring everything up to date on our progress with our new home. It seems crazy that we've already lived here for almost four months! But while it seems like it's been slow going, a lot has actually been accomplished. But, first we had to come across some major changes to the plans. So here are some progress pictures of what we've done so far.




Right off the bat after we moved onto the property, we started on demo. Things were going along pretty well, and most of the stuff we came across was pretty much expected. There was wood panelling in every room, and cardboard ceiling tiles, and it all had to come down. We found lots of bug nests in the walls and ceilings, which is what all of that grey dirt looking stuff is! We knew whole place needed re-wiring and new plumbing, and while trying to maybe salvage the kitchen, it became obvious pretty quickly that we would need to get all new cabinetry (which was fine by me!).






One fun thing we came across that we weren't expecting were the stacked 2x4 walls! I guess that's pretty common with older houses in timber products areas, because of all of the lumber mills. Mill workers could get free scraps and seconds, but they were so short that the only way to use them in building was to stack and nail them, one on top of the other! All in all, it wouldn't have been too bad to keep that, and we were planning on keeping some exposed as a statement wall.





We had the place pretty much completely gutted in a few weeks, and since so much of what we were tearing out was wood based products, we just chucked them out of the living room window and eventually got it all burned before fire season started in our area. The pile was huge! It was pretty validating to see that proof of what we were accomplishing.







Then we got to the foundation. Like I said in my last post, we knew it was bad. We just weren't sure how bad. When we figured it out, after the house was almost completely gutted, we knew it needed a new one. It became a matter of either jacking the house up and pouring a new foundation, or tearing the older, original half (built in the 40s) down and starting from scratch there.

What it came down to was the fact that besides the roof (which was still in great shape, and only about 10 years old), we were literally replacing everything of value in that part of the house. The stacked walls were ok, but they weren't really worth salvaging or trying to work around. So when it came down to it, we decided to tear the front down and start fresh, with a new foundation and traditionally framed walls.



So, down she came. My father-in-law is an excavator, and he brought his equipment over and went to work! There was a quick, scary moment when the house started twisting away, and almost hit our trailer! I was live streaming on instagram stories, so if you tuned in, you got to see us all collectively almost have a heart attack, haha.

But, my father-in-law's a pro and he got a hold of it at the last second, and it came down without any more drama :) It was a very exciting day, especially after weeks of slow going, then BOOM! Big progress!





The front came down about a month ago, and we just finished up our new foundation. Things seemed to drag on for a while waiting on our permits, but now we're finally on a roll. My parents were here a couple of weeks ago, and my dad helped cut down and remove a couple of trees that were planted awkwardly close to the house. And then we had both of our dads and a couple of friends come help pour our foundation footing. Then came the block (that my f-i-l also helped with), and it's slowly but surely been moving along.






The next step is framing and rough plumbing. It's just so exciting to be in the process of building it back up instead of tearing things apart! The updates will probably be a little slower coming at this point, because now we're caught up, but in the meantime I'll be sharing some inspiration and plans for the design that I've been coming up with over the last few months. My goal is to be better about sharing things during this renovation in real time than with our last one, haha!

Thanks for stopping by!

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