For some reason, I thought that I could go to a craft store and just buy a simple, some-what modern looking  wreath for our front door. It’s never that simple…….Everything they were selling was plastic and round. I wanted a thick, chunky square with natural looking leaves. So I just had to make my own…..

I couldn’t find a square wreath form, only round. So I picked up a solid block of styrafoam….it was 15 by 12 , and about 2 inches thick.

Pretty easy to cut it into approximate 3 inch by 12 inch pieces…..I used a bread knife. Then a hot glue gun to attach them in a perfect square.

After a 3 store search, I found freeze-dried autumn leaves. Not silk or plastic. At one time these were actually growing on trees. I can’t say that these colors are natural, but the leaves are soft enough to bend and mold. I wanted mostly orange…and could only find mostly red. This actually worked out great because the orange would have disappeared against the orange front door. At 3 bucks a package , I bought 5.

I snipped the branch off the end, and twisted floral wire around the middle of each branch. Then wrapped the wire around the wreath form. The trick is to make sure the leaves are all going  in the same direction….This helps keep the square shape…..

Because I wanted to see mostly orange, I started with the red and layered the orange over them.  After I used all the big branches, I hot glued all the extra single leaves in the spaces where I could see the green foam. Pretty simple to do …..

In about 30 minutes, and with about 25 bucks, I had exactly what I wanted. The whole thing weighs about 3 ounces and is hanging on a freaking thumb tack.

Somebody should sell these things online…………………