Create a Late Summer/Early Autumn Wreath from a Dollar Tree Score

Hello, friends! Summer heat is still with us and fall weather is still a ways off, so our friend Cindy from County Road 407 has come up with a lovely wreath project for us to make and enjoy now here as we move into late summer. Of course, we always get to put our own spin on whatever we create for each month’s Pinterest Challenge ~ which makes each challenge super fun! My wreath will easily transition into autumn, and surprisingly, even beyond. Let’s make a wreath!

I want to say a big thank you to Cindy for creating this monthly Pinterest Challenge. It’s always a pleasure to create or decorate something new each month. If you are just coming over from Diane at South House Designs for the first time, welcome! Didn’t you just love Diane’s wreath decorating ideas? Soooo pretty!! I love the little wreath hung with all the creamware coffee mugs ~ perfection!!

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Our inspiration

Here is the boxwood wreath made by Courtenay from The Creek Line House. This wreath’s simple style of boxwood clippings works well with all types of decor and they look fresh for a really long time.

Courtenay has hung her wreath outside on her backdoor underneath a covered porch. She has decorated around her doorway with galvanized buckets of what looks like dahlias and dusty miller, adding a whitewashed lantern filled with more boxwood shaped into large balls, and standing a small wooden ladder up against an old grey shutter.

A lovely garden-styled look!

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A trip to Dollar Tree

I looked for some leftover pieces of a wire wreath form I had but I must have used it for another project a couple of years ago. So, off to our local Dollar Tree I went to see if I could find a wreath form there.

I found two choices. The one on the left above has a grapevine base so that is the one I chose to use.

I pulled off the styrofoam starfish and the little berries and corresponding greenery. I left the pieces which looked like boxwood as I thought I may need the “filler” if I didn’t collect enough boxwood trimmings to make my wreath.

So… Off to ask my neighbor if I could clip his big boxwood hedges! 🙂

To my surprise, his gorgeous bushes which looked like boxwood from the street weren’t boxwood bushes at all…They were hollies!

So, my “boxwood wreath” will easily transition to Christmas, as you can now see. 😉

Here I was halfway through clipping off the new growth and extra bits of overgrowth. Perfect to collect for my wreath-making project!

I felt a little like Red Riding Hood bringing a gift to her grandmother! I’m glad I got a full bag of holly clippings.

Our weather cooled off, so I sat outdoors to create. It was wonderful making little bundles of holly and wrapping them onto the grapevine with twine! (I couldn’t find my floral wire, but this worked better anyway. More natural.)

About halfway done… Did I mention that this grapevine wreath already has a round ring attached?

Oh! And it had a $5.00 price tag and I was okay with that price. However, when I got home and looked at the receipt…

Total cost: $1.09! That’s all that this project cost as I had everything else in my craft stash.

I finished it, hung it up, and thought it needed a ribbon or something… But we had to run over to my mother-in-law’s house and finish up her sprinkler retrofit/planting new bushes project there.

This was the first iteration as I had to come back and clip off the drooping “new growth” and hot glue in more of the older, sturdier holly trimmings.

That did the trick!

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Fast forward to the next day

I had completely forgotten what the original photograph had in it other than the wreath but I am happy that my version has the same garden-inspired feel.

And I hung my wreath outside our kitchen backdoor under our patio as well. 😉 This was totally a fluke as I just thought, “Oh, here’s a door I can hang this wreath on and it’ll be shaded most of the day.”

(There wasn’t any thought as to where to hang it, honestly. I’ve been on summer break from school too long, lol! My mind has turned to relaxation mush.)

Dappled sunlight invites you to come and sit a spell! Love the reflection of the farmhouse creamware vase with its sunflowers, purple eryngium bourgatii/Mediterranean sea holly and white heath asters.

I thought of using sunflowers as my floral inspiration in this transitional summer-to-fall wreath as they really are the perfect mid-to-late summer flower plus they really love the heat this time of year.

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Still simple to go with any decor and with very much of a boxwood-wreath-look, this impromptu holly wreath has just a touch of faux sunflowers and a creamy lace bow for a bright pop of late summer/early autumn color with lots of texture. 💜 

Thank you for stopping by today and please subscribe if you enjoyed this post. Up next is our host Cindy from County Road 407 with her post sharing a bunch of ideas for decorating with boxwood wreaths (and this post doesn’t disappoint!). Be sure to follow the links below for more inspiration!

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Happy creating!