Another bright idea popped into my head as I was piddling around my house yesterday morning; how about if I make a Christmas wreath to attach to the 6′ mirror that hangs above our mantel?!  Well, the first thing I needed to do was check with the hubby to see if it was even a doable task *for him* as I am not as agile way up on a ladder as I’d like to be. 😉 He assured me that he would be more than able and definitely willing to hang whatever wreath I created way up there on that mirror.

OH let me tell you a quick story about that pretty, *large*, *heavy* mirror (6′ tall x 45″ wide). My hubby actually was the one that found that on LightingDirect.com <~~~ That link is for a similar mirror, I can’t find our specific mirror at this time.  Anyway, it was delivered via 18-wheeler (freight) because it was *that* heavy.  Putting that thing up was quite the task, my hubby attached a piece of wood the width of the mirror to the back of the mirror and one of the same size to the wall, he had cut angles on the edges of the wood pieces so that the piece on the back of the mirror would snug down into the piece of wood on the wall thus anchoring it nicely and securely.  It took my daughter, my hubby (while up on a ladder), and myself to lift and muscle it into place, whew!!  Trust me, it isn’t coming back down…probably ever…haha.

So back to my bright idea, I decided to make a grapevine wreath for this location because I wanted to stick with my planned color and rather rustic theme.  I’ll be using a pine pre-lit garland on the mantel…I bit the bullet this year and went ahead and purchased it new from Grandin Road…here is a link… Christmas Garland. Yes, it was a bit pricey, but I had a 20% off your entire purchase coupon, so I went for it.  While I was at it, I purchased a set of 5 Candle Rings; I will be adding some of the same red and gold berries to them that I used for this wreath (subject for another blog).  Those candle rings will be placed on these gold mercury glass candle stick holders that will be on the mantel…

Okay, I know all of the components that I’m mentioning for my fireplace decor sound like quite the hodgepodge, but I *think* when I pull it all together that it will look lovely…I hope anyway. 😉

Now, I wanted to make a pretty large wreath to place on the mirror, so I purchased a 24″ grapevine oval wreath (the shape wasn’t as oval as I wanted it to be though, but it’ll do)…

The first thing I did was to cut strips of felt and I hot glued them onto the back of the wreath so that it won’t scratch the mirror or anywhere else that I might want to hang it in the future…

I also made a ‘hanger’ out of a pipe cleaner and I hot glued it on to where I deemed would be the top center of the wreath…

 

I had purchased this little wooden snowman to add to the wreath and I knew that it’d be too heavy to glue on, so I hot glued pipe cleaners to the back of it so that I could tie him onto the wreath…

Here are the other accents that I chose…

Some pine greenery:

Red sparkly berries:

Gold berries and small Christmas ornaments…

I made a rather large bow and attached some of the red and gold berries into the pipe cleaner that I used to tie the bow shut.  I pulled them around to the front and through the bow loops to add a little interest…

 

I also found these cute burlap ornaments that I thought would help the wreath feel a bit more rustic…

Okay, so it was time to assemble the wreath…Here we go…

The first thing I attached (hot glued) was the greenery, one large piece and one smaller piece starting on the upper left bending it and circling around the top and half way down the right side of the wreath form.   I did the same thing around the bottom portion of the wreath leaving myself a bit of a space on the left side so that I could place the snowman…

After that, I added the bow, red berries, the gold berries and the little ornaments.  I then placed the larger burlap ornaments and called it done. 🙂 Here is the finished wreath…

I really wanted to have this wreath lit for at least a few of the evening hours so I went on the search of a battery operated light strand with a timer an I found one at Walmart! There are 3 timing options and the one I chose was to have the lights come on at a certain time each evening, they will stay on for 6 hours and automatically turn off.  The perfect solution! 🙂 AND **Bonus**  they were only $6.88!

 

I do think it will look really pretty on the mirror above the mantel…I sat it up on the mantel this morning to see if the size was going work okay, and I do think that it will. I had to do a little visualizing because I will not even attempt to hang that puppy up there by myself. 😉

Wow, I do think that it will make a nice bold statement on that mirror and it will help to pull all aspects of the fireplace decor together. Yippee!!

I’m really itching to redecorate my house for Christmas; my Dad will be coming to join us for Thanksgiving and he enjoys Christmas decorations so much, I might just decorate a little earlier this year so that he can enjoy it when he comes for our feast. 🙂

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~~~Well, it is a week later and I’m amending this post just a bit, just as I’ve amended this wreath…haha.  My color pallet for my family room is going to be burgundy and gold.  Then why (you might ask) did I put that bright red plaid bow on a wreath that would be an integral part of that room’s decor? Because I lost my mind for a moment? Because I *thought* it would blend in? 😉 😉   Shoot, I was losing sleep over this little issue, so I couldn’t stand it any longer.  I made a new bow out of 2 different ribbons (burgundy and gold) because I couldn’t find any ribbon that I liked enough. I added a couple of poinsettias, some more gold berry beads, and a couple more ornaments.  I feel much better now and I’m sure I will sleep much better tonight. 😉

Here is a before and after comparison:

And this is the wreath that will hang on the mirror…I loved that red plaid ribbon, but not enough to completely throw off my entire plan for the room. 🙂

Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤

**In crafting there are no mistakes just unique creations**