2017 Snowman Grapevine Wreath Tutorial

Here's a cute little snowman that Rachel whipped up in the shop yesterday. He has a little different look, being placed on a grapevine wreath, which you can hardly see. We really were just using the grapevine as a base, to it's okay that it's not showing. The products we used in this wreath will be available in a kit from Trendy Tree, but once the kits have sold out, we'll leave the tutorial up since you can substitute other supplies and create a similar look. Supplies: 18" Oval Grapevine Wreath XC6095 Snowman 4 Piece Kit XX1947 Snowed Branch (sold out but XS9572 is similar) XV6888 Pine Cedar Pick EW006233 Red Burgundy Berry Spray RG0155002 4" Black White Snowflake Ribbon (in kit only) 10/18/17 Sorry - the kits have sold out. No more will be available, but some of the individual supplies may be and you can also choose substitutes. Summary: Grapevine Wreath: We chose an 18" oval grapevine wreath for this project. Grapevine wreaths are messy and no two wreaths are exactly alike! You may find one slightly smaller or larger than the other. Grapevine wreaths are really great for attaching greenery to because you have so many options when you are looking for a place to add something. Snowman Pieces: This snowman is a four-piece kit that comes with head, lower body and arm. All the pieces are wires for easy attachment. If you wind up not needing all the wires, you can just tuck them out of the way or snip them off. We started with the placement of the head, and just wired it to the grapevine wreath. The lower body was placed off side a bit, but you could place it in the center as well. The arms were not placed until later. Branches: Next Rachel placed the greenery. The pine cedar pick is a nice thick pick with two pinecones, eucalyptus. pine and center. She cut the spray in two pieces and placed one on the right side of the snowman just above the lower body and the other piece on the left side. To attach greenery, you can insert the tips of the pieces into hot glue (or use a glue gun) for extra security. You can also reach from the back of the wreath, find the tip of the greenery and secure with a small piece of wire to the grapevine wreath. For our purposes today, we just stuck the pieces down in the grapevine. When we make projects here at Trendy Tree, sometimes right after we finish we just take them apart and sometimes we take them home of course)) Next she took the snowed branches and added one to each side close to the greenery. The snowed branch is wired so you can manipulate it a bit. It also has a few red berries on it, but it's mostly just white flocking. It can be a bit messy too. To add in a little more red color, she chose a red/burgundy berry pick. One of these was added to each side also. Shorten the stems as necessary with wire cutters. Again, you can work from the back and locate the tip of the pick and add a bit of floral wire, or use some hot glue for a more secure fix. Ribbon: The ribbon we chose was a 4" ribbon. We don't use a lot of 4" ribbon, but since this project only had one ribbon, we wanted it to really stand out. You could use another size and style of course. Or multiple ribbons, whatever is your preference. Rachel took a piece of ribbon about 1 1/4" yards in length. The ribbon is beautiful with it's black background and white glitter snowflakes. It's are wired ribbon and wired ribbon is always much easier to work with. She made a simple shoestring style bow, secured it with a piece of floral wire and wired it to the inner side of the wreath so it would look like it was under the snowman's chin. The tails are a little uneven, but she planned it that way. The loops for the shoestring bow were about 5" You can make other styles of bow also, or you might even want to use a small scarf. Then she took another piece of ribbon about 42" in length, made one 6" loop on one end, and attached it to the opposite side of the wreath just above the lower body. She let the ribbon just sort of drape across the front and then attached it to the opposite side leaving a bit of a tail. Last thing to attach was the arms. You might want to hang the wreath on the wall and stand back and look at it for placement of the arms. The branchy arms are made of felt, and are wired for shaping, plus have wires for attachment. You can make a hanger for the grapevine wreath with a chenille stem or floral wire. Making a hanger at the beginning of the project helps you keep your top of the wreath visible. Once your done, check your ribbon ends. You may want to finish them off with a dovetail or chevron cut or just angle them. Another nice way to finish ribbon, especially the wide ribbon, is to roll up the end a bit. This really looks nice when the back side of the ribbon is different from the face side. This ribbon isn't of course, but it's still a nice way of ending off ribbon. Check the back of your ribbon for any sharp edges of wire, or twig that might scratch your door. The finished wreath measured about 29" in ht and 26" in width. Again, we'll leave this tutorial up even after some or all of the supplies have sold out, since the basic instructions can be followed and other products chosen. Thanks for watching! Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you won't miss our next video coming out soon! And follow us on Facebook where we're doing some Facebook Live. Save