Making a Drift Wood Wreath

I live by the ocean which I am for ever grateful for. I can not walk down a beach with out ending up with something in my pocket and usually it is drift wood. Years ago my aunt who is an artist extraordinaire started making driftwood wreaths to sell at her church fair, I fell in love. Here is a picture of one in her house, I'm not the only one with sandy pockets after a beach walk.

I started to make them and offer them to brides who were having seaside weddings, they have been pretty popular. Here are two framing the doors of a church

I have also made them with the center of the wreath being more like an open circle like this.

The are ridiculously easy to make you just need to collect enough driftwood and  few supplies. I start with a flat ring sold at most craft stores like this.

You will also need a glue gun and lots of glue!

You can use a wire to hang it or

ribbon

Start by placing a few pieces to get the shape, don't glue anything yet.

fill in some of the spaces, make sure to have little pieces to fill in the gaps.

Keep filling in until you have just small parts of the frame showing.

Fill in gaps with your little pieces

I like to get the whole wreath nearly done before I start to glue, it is a lot easier to move pieces around before they are glued on the frame! When you are pretty done you can start to glue by just picking up a few pieces at a time and gluing them in place. 

 When you are done you will have some glue visible, don't worry about that just give the glue some time to dry. When the glue is dry you can use a hair dryer to blow the wispy glue off and then just pick off any larger pieces.

 When you have finished your wreath decorate it how ever you like. I collected some mussel shells and periwinkles and just made a little flower with them.

Drift wood wreath done!

Have fun and enjoy!