Making of Wreaths 6

There is great variety possible in the making of nut wreaths. Acorns, Brazil nuts, chestnuts, litchi nuts, al­monds, buttonball seed pods, sweet gum fruits, cones and bayberry provide a wide choice of forms and colors (Draw­ing 7) Sometimes unity gives a better effect than variety. A very handsome wreath can be made of small cones in different sizes some face up and others in reverse, either in natural colors or gilded.

Many of the sweet herbs may be used in wreaths, among them rosemary, gray artemisias, lavender, mullein and santolina. Some add the charm of a subtle fragrance.

A wreath of English holly with full berry clusters would need no other decoration, unless it were a red bow. And nothing else is required if a wreath is constructed mainly of dark-colored greens, with pieces of golden arborvitae, blue spruce or gray-foliaged plants worked in for occa­sional accents or contrast.

Simple, but quite effective, is a wreath of blue spruce, decorated with the brown buds (not the seed pods) of the Chinese empress tree (Paulownia tomentosa). Variegated holly and osmanthus leaves, decorated with limes and lemons, produce a beautiful and unusual effect in yellow-green. A more striking combination results when the flat silvery-white seed cases of honesty (Lunaria annua) are fashioned into a wreath and hung against red velvet. Other dramatic possibilities will occur to the imaginative and ingenious decorator. A wreath of golden arborvitae, with an inside circle of gilded ivy leaves, may serve as frame for a round picture of the Madonna, to be hung against old gold brocade.

After conventional forms and materials become familiar, there is opportunity for experiment. It is exciting to discover, for example, what can be done with mahonia leaves and white grapes, or with shellacked ivy leaves and tiny white onions. Possible diversities of color and effect are astonishing and unlimited.

Anyone with a keen eye and an alert imagination may create a wreath of out­standing beauty from roadside materials. Every meadow and hedgerow has something of beauty and use to offer. The more commonplace the material, the greater the satisfaction in using it in distinctive and effective fashion.

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