DIY Spring Wreaths: 7 Unexpected Projects You Can Craft

By Lori Keong

Springtime is all about growth, rebirth, and brilliant flowers (like ranunculus and peonies) in full bloom. It’s the perfect time to display spring wreaths that add just the right amount of greenery to the front porch or soften your home decor with pastel hues.

But rather than shopping for a new living front door wreath or a cheaper option with artificial flowers, why not get your hands a little dirty and DIY? Netherlands-based floral artist and educator Anne van Midden advises that colorful dried flowers make “excellent everlasting wreaths” that will last year-round so long as they’re kept away from direct sunlight and moisture. If you want to create DIY spring wreaths that will last all season, it’s a good idea to forage for living materials that can survive for a long time without water sources or dry well, Midden says. For spring, she gravitates towards botanicals like Pieris, seedpods, evergreens, acacia, babies breath, ivy, Mediterranean herbs, smilax, leather fern, and pussy willow.

Fernando Kabigting, founder of Brooklyn-based floral design studio FDK Florals, says that spring wreaths are all about selecting materials that reflect the colors of the season and retain their color as they fade, unlike a more subdued fall or winter wreath. “There are no rules to what shape or form spring wreaths need to take, but—taking inspiration from nature—you can give the wreaths a form that nods to spring landscapes and evokes the scenes found on shaded forest floors, sweeping fields, or those found outside your garden,” Kabigting says.

To put together your wreath, he suggests working with floral wire to secure all of the greenery, florals, and branches together; using a glue gun with glue sticks to adhere any extra unruly pieces to your wreath; and reaching for a wire cutter and floral scissors (all can be found on Amazon or your local home and garden store) to make it easier to snip and trim the right size pieces to your design.

Looking for wreath ideas that you can display on your front door or use as wall decor? Below, seven inspiring DIY projects to help you welcome spring with pizzazz. For more tips on making nontraditional green wreaths, see some step-by-step tutorials here.

To make a sculptural monochromatic wreath that serves softness and strength in equal measure, select delicate dried materials of similar colors then layer them from the bottom and work upward.

To make this ethereal hydrangea wreath, Skye Lin—founder and creative director at Atlanta’s Pinker Times, a hybrid exhibition and floral design studio—employed an asymmetrical, monochromatic design to create an organic spring front. “The palette was designed with an intentional lack of contrast,” Lin says. The spring wreath features textural florals and foliage like eucalyptus, hydrangea, bunny tails, baby breath, sea lavender, and other foraged pieces. Lin secured everything to thin looping branches with wire of various gauges. To recreate your own version of this floral wreath, seek out foraged botanicals and flowers of similar colors that you can layer and build to create volume, then add a ribbon for extra texture. Rather than aiming for symmetry all around the length of the branches, concentrate on building out the bottom half of the wreath, then working your way up.

Spiraling can actually be a good thing. Floral designer Fernando Kabigting demonstrates how to perfect it in wreath form with this frenetic color-blocked creation.

Following a traditional circular wreath form, Kabigting used a red bud pussy willow base with preserved Gomphrena, otherwise known as globe amaranth. He inserted it at an angle in order to create a “loose spiraling movement around the base.” The stems were left with the leaves intact and cropped in closely to the floral ends to evoke the feeling of the warmer seasons.

Since “Gomphrena grow in cloudlike mounds with their round heads peering over the edges,” Kabigting was inspired to mimic their natural growing pattern by styling this wreath with their round-shaped flower “visually dominating the surface of the wreath in varying heights.” The idea was to create a color-blocking effect by contrasting the two tonal pink tones and movement with a wild radial design that fans out from the center. This wreath idea can transition beyond springtime and spill into summer wreath territory or even Valentine’s Day decor.

Stray from traditional shapes with an unorthodox design like this pussy willow wreath, with a form resembles a plant pushing toward the sun.

By Paola Singer

By Elizabeth Stamp

By Ilana Kaplan

Subverting the typical rounded flower wreath shape, Kabigting used the same materials as the Gomphrena wreath above but with an entirely different approach. Instead, he styled tall and short willow branches and Gomphrena fanning upwards to mimic the sensation of plants “growing and reaching for the sun’s glow,” Kabigting says. By “breaking out of the confines of a neat border,” he notes that you can create natural movement (and, we think, a certain conversation starter of a wreath). It also works as an abstract interpretation for Easter as the pussy willow resembles bunny tails—an adorable way to welcome spring.

A chic rendition of a classic Easter wreath.

Considering DIY Easter decorations this year? Give your front door decor a hint of spring with a nest-inspired, pastel option. To create a wreath that resembles a bird’s nest, Van Midden recommends bundling lots of thin, flexible branches and shaping it into a circle. “The wilder and messier the better, so it really looks like it’s ready for some eggs,” she says. From there, you can tie on a natural-dyed fabric ribbon “to add some softness and make the design somewhat lighter.” Alternatively, follow similar steps to create a butterfly wreath by swapping out eggs for some Monarch and Morpho beauties from Etsy.

Yellow flowers, like marigolds, bring forth happiness at the front door.

By Paola Singer

By Elizabeth Stamp

By Ilana Kaplan

Those who love the sunny forsythia wreaths will adore this explosion of yellow flowers—marigolds woven into a dogwood base—bursting wildly in all directions. “There’s a freedom to spring, and I selected these particular stems and their vibrant yellow color to reflect that,” Kabigting says. “To emphasize their need to break from their base into the light, I selected all stages of the blooms, from buds to fully extended heads.”

Succulents and ivy look fresh on a spring wreath.

Another long-lasting spring decor idea that doesn’t involve using dried flowers is a living wreath. To create your own, van Midden suggests starting out by adding damp moss to a natural wreath base like straw. “Wrap it tightly with twine and layer in some base foliage,” she suggests, then tuck in a few spring flowers like small daffodils, forsythia, white tulips, or grape hyacinths. You can even add small plants the same way, she notes. “Forget-me-nots, succulents, primroses, or pansies are a great choice. Wrap the roots with a fair amount of soil in hessian cloth [or burlap] before tucking them in.” To keep your living wreath fresh for as long as possible, she also recommends keeping your wreath moist while it’s up and displaying it in a room that isn’t too hot or dry.

A lavender wreath with a twist? Create an all-year flower wreath that’ll draw color into your home wherever it’s placed by selecting dense, hardy plants like sea lavender that can be layered for a stunning effect.

For a design that will translate even as a summer wreath and remain evergreen in cooler months, keep it simple but directional. Kabigting created a modern take on a wheel wreath by working with one dense, singular material throughout: purple limonium, or sea lavender, which is a clump-forming perennial characterized by small papery flowers. “Color is of great importance and purple limonium holds its color even as it fades and will provide that sense of the outdoors in corners of your space that may otherwise not allow for live plants to thrive,” he explains. To DIY your own sea lavender wreath, prepare to use plenty of wire or twine to secure the branches in place, following the curve of the form and layering flowers for added texture.