How to Make the Cutest Mini-Wreaths You’ve Ever Seen

Several years ago I began making simple mini-wreaths that can be attached to all sorts of vintage and antiques and sold for good money

In this article, I’m going to show you how I make them, but you can discover how to use them 18 different ways in this post.

I made these little darlings one January, fooling around after the holidays with some left-over crafting materials.

You can watch this video, which takes you step-by-step through the process of making them, or simply read the post below (or do both, LOL).

Materials to Make Mini-Wreaths

This post contains affiliate links for products necessary to complete this project. This is both for your convenience as well as to support my blog, as I receive a small compensation whenever you click on such a link and make any sort of purchase, for which I thank you.

Materials:

• Pine pipe cleaners (or garland)
• 1/2″ Antique white cotton seam binding (this is the closest I could find to my antique seam binding)
• Manila card stock (to create the salutation: Merry Christmas)
• Aging spray (strong coffee + a pinch of alum)
• Your computer

You can find the pine garland in 12″ pipe cleaner lengths or by the yard on rolls, depending on where you look for it.

I used vintage cotton seam-binding for the bows because it helps create the farmhouse look I’m after since it’s antique white and has no glossy finish whatsoever.

Step 1: Cut & Shape Your Mini-Wreath

I had purchased a package of the pine pipe cleaners but hadn’t found a use for them. Like I said, I started fooling around with them. I realized that if I cut them in half (6″), I could shape them into cute mini-wreaths.

Step 2: Hot Glue Your Mini-Wreath Together

Hot glue the two ends together. I chose to decorate them simply in the hopes of giving them a vintage, farmhouse look.

Step 3: Create Your Merry Christmas Salutation

Method 1: Print out a page of these “merry christmas” banners (from the Member Library) on manila cardstock. On three pages you’ll find two sizes and two colors (red and brown).

Gain access to the Library “printable” page by subscribing to my weekly newsletter.

Age the page with “aging spray” (strong coffee made with instant coffee in a small spray bottle). Lightly spritz the page and let it dry before cutting the words out.

Method 2: Type up multiple “merry christmas” banners on a computer page and print them out on manila cardstock. I used a vintage typewriter style font in 12-point size. Follow aging instructions above. 

I created red, black, and brown versions, but I like the red the best and tend to use them on all of my wreaths. I also like the look of all lower-case letters. Fiddle around with different looks and see which YOU like best for your wreaths 🙂

Step 4: Make Bows

Make small bows using your vintage or antique white seam binding or ribbon.

Step 5: Put It All Together

Now it’s time to put it all together by gluing on your bow and “merry christmas” salutation. It will take you about 30 seconds!

You can also tie a piece of plain antique white baker’s string to the top to allow you to hang it from your tree or from a cabinet knob.

As an alternative to the cardstock “merry christmases” you can also make little banners like you see here. I use Christmas rubber stamps and some antique white paper to create them.

I enjoy making the wreaths so much, the next thing I knew I was decorating everything in sight with them! In fact, you’ll find a number of ways to decorate with them in this post: creative ways to use mini-wreaths.

This funnel Christmas tree is one of the first creations that I attached a mini-wreath to; it’s available at the Shaker craft fair going on right now. You can see in the background, I tacked wreaths onto rusty hearts to create a unique ornament. 

Over the summer, I found a couple of rolls of garland almost identical to the pipe cleaner variety. Now I can create oodles more wreaths.

I also bought this roll of red tinsel at Target’s after Christmas sale and discovered that it makes nice wreaths, too. I admit, I’ve gone a little wreath crazy, but they are selling well at the craft fair, so I guess others enjoy them as much as I do.

Have you started working on any Christmas projects yet? Normally, this would be a bit early for me, but because of the craft fair, I start developing ideas in January. I can’t wait to share more of them with you as we lead up to Christmas.