Acorn Wreath Tutorial

We've got a whole lot of acorns and pine cones left over from collecting for the faerie family, so we've been looking for ways to use them! I've seen some acorn wreaths before and liked them, and that seemed a good way to use a bunch. Plus it's too early for my Christmas wreath (which I didn't want to undecorate last year :P) and I am not in the mood for my blueberry twig wreath, it is just too bare for the current bounty! I found this dense foam wreath form at a craft store, but you could probably cheat with anything cylindrical and flexible, and duct tape it together. 

Most of the acorns had lost their hats, but a little dab of hot glue fixed that. In fact, it can sometimes be hard to find acorns with hats. That's okay, just get lots of both and play match up. Kaia enjoyed helping me find hats to fit the acorns, and selecting which acorn ought to be glued on next.

Put a bit of hot glue on the back of the acorn, and start working your way around. I started with the center ring since that will be the most prominent and also tried to alternate the size of my acorns a bit.

I have seen the acorns glued on every which way, but I personally prefer the look of them lined up. Once my center ring was done, I did the two rings on either side, then another ring on the outside of each of those. How many rings you need will depend on the size of both your form and your acorns. Also, beware, apparently cats like to eat acorns? I had no less than three of them attempt to...

Once you've got all your acorns on, you still have a lot of ugly foam (or possibly a length of hose with duct tape, lol) showing through. I dealt with this with a bag of craft moss I had lying around, purchased for an entirely different project that I never finished. Or possibly even started. (That hardly ever happens, I swear...) Alternatively, you could spray paint your form before gluing your acorns and not have to worry about this step. I think it looks pretty nice, though.

I applied the moss by jamming it in to the gaps with a stick, I used no glue. It was springy enough that once in, it expanded and held itself in place. I took it a pinch at a time and poked it into the spaces with my twig. You could try covering your entire form with glue and moss prior to adding the acorns, but I am not sure how well they will stick.

Keep on going until you have all of the form covered. This is a great job to hand off to any willing little ones, Kaia loved doing this bit! :D

For a focal point, I added two small pine cones and a dried Queen Anne's Lace flower. This didn't show up great in the picture for some reason, but you get the idea. I swear it looks much better in person ;) You could add a bow instead if that's your thing, or whatever strikes your fancy.

Not being able to locate my wreath hanger, I instead dug out some raffia and a couple of the flat style of push pins. One tack went in the back of the wreath to loop the raffia around and the second tack I jabbed through the ends of the raffia and into the top edge of the door. I ended up hot gluing the tack in the wreath after the tack slipped out, the wreath fell, and I had to glue some acorns back into place.

And you're ready to show it off :D