How to Make a Dried Citrus Wreath
One of my favourite pre Christmas jobs is to make a wreath for the front door. Usually I’ll make one from greenery and berries, but this year I wanted to try something different.
This dried citrus wreath has slices of dried orange, lemon and lime, with bay leaves and ribbon in between.
It’s fairly easy to put together and the bits and pieces are all easy to find. A trip to the supermarket should cover it if you don’t have what you need already!
The bit that takes the time with this wreath is preparing the fruit slices, sorting out the bay leaves and cutting the ribbon. Once you’ve done that, it all comes together quite quickly.
Instructions for Making a Dried Citrus Wreath
I’ve included some affiliate links.
You will need
Thick garden wire
Wire cutters
or old scissors
Strong tape, like gorilla tape
About 60 dried fruit slices (8-10 in total of oranges, lemons and limes should be enough). Instructions for drying the fruit can be found here.
Ribbon (about 5 m cut into 15 cm lengths)
Bay leaves (the cheapest ones I found were Polish ones in Tesco)
Wide ribbon
Florists’ wire
String, raffia
Assembling the Bits and Pieces
1. Cut the wire to size. If you’re using a wire coat hanger, just cut off the twisty bits and the hook. To do this, I cut through the plastic casing with the scissors, then bent it back and forth until it snapped.
If you’re using garden wire, you’ll need a length of about 85 cm.
You can make the wreath bigger or smaller by changing the length of the wire.
2. Cut up the ribbon. It will need to be in lengths of about 15 cm, into 4 roughly equal piles.
3. Sort out the dried fruit slices. You’ll need 8 piles with 7 in each pile. If there’s a lot of variation in size, choose larger slices to go in the middle of each group and smaller ones for either side. Check whether each slice has a hole in the middle. If not, poke a hole through with a knitting needle, darning needle or skewer.
4. Sort out the bay leaves. You’ll need 4 lots of about 15. Each bay leaf will need a hole through the middle.
5. Make the bow. Tie a bow in a length of wide ribbon. You could thread a piece of florists’ wire through the back, but if you don’t have any, strong thread will do.
Making the Wreath
1. Take one of the piles of fruit and start threading the slices onto the wire. Push them on so that they are about half way round.
2. Thread on one of the piles of bay leaves in the same way. I found the bay leaves to be quite brittle, so gently is the way to go!
3. Next thread on 2 more lots of dried fruit. You’ll be tying ribbons in between these once all the fruit and bay leaves are on the wire.
4. Thread on another pile of bay leaves, then another pile of fruit. You should have 4 lots of fruit slices, with bay leaves between the first and second group and the third and fourth group. This is one half of the wreath.
5. Take the other end of the wire and repeat steps 1 – 4.
6. Using the tape, stick the ends of the wire together. They’ll need to overlap by 5 – 10 cm. Wrap the tape around the overlapping part a few times to hold them securely.
7. Make a loop from the string or bakers’ twine and tie it to the top of the wreath.
8. Tie on the ribbons. These need to go in between the groups of citrus slices that are not separated by bay leaves, including the top part.
9. Attach the bow to the top of the wreath. If you are using florists’ wire, wrap the wire around the wire of the wreath. Otherwise just tie it on.
Now your dried citrus wreath is ready to hang on your door!
If you have any dried fruit slices left over, you might like to take a look at these tutorials:
I used fleece fabric in red and white as I love the warm snuggliness of fleece. It’s easy to sew and doesn’t fray. The hems can just be folded over and the appliqued pieces don’t need to backing with interfacing.
