How to make a stunning woolen Advent wreath

As the end of November, every year approaches, the weather turns cold. The days become shorter and darker; for me starts that beautiful time of crafting the Advent wreath.

Just as I arrange a new menu for every Christmas dinner, I create a different Advent wreath every year different from the years before.

Since I'm not a fan of store-bought Advent wreaths, I consider a DIY Advent wreath for each year. Often a bundled out of brushwood, sometimes one that's arranged on an étagère, or like in 2020, an Advent wreath made out of wool.

Making an Advent wreath out of wool is something I've always wanted to do. And last year, I finally took the time to create it. And as it turned out during the tinkering, it was not so much hassle as expected.

🛠 Equipment

• Two half-rings or one full styrofoam ring with a diameter of 11.81 inches / 30 cm
• Florist wire for fixating those styrofoam rings together
• U-shaped pins for attaching the wool to the styrofoam
• 1-2 yarn in the color of your choice 
• Four candleholders for inserting with a mandrel
• 4-8 small ornament decorations or the numbers 1-4
• Four pillar candles in color complementing the wool
• One decorative plate for placing the finished Advent Wreath
• Fir brushwood for the smell and as a base between the decor plate and Advent wreath

🪡 Instructions

The first step is to take the two styrofoam rings and secure them with the floral wire so they won't slip apart when you start wrapping the wool. Place the floral wire on opposite sides of the wreath. Those two wires make it stable enough while wrapping and do not give you unnecessary work with more wires.

The floral wire is then gradually moved during the winding and finally removed. So don't close too tightly! Now take the yarn and find (this can take a while) its end. There you make a small loop, through which you put a U-shaped pin to attach the yarn to the bottom of the Styrofoam wreath.

Now the wrapping of the wreath starts

Make sure that you wrap very tightly and firmly. If you don't do this, you can see the underlying Styrofoam, which doesn't look nice, and on the other hand, the wreath shifts and is not stable enough if you don't wrap it tightly enough. After each time you wrap the wool, use your fingernail to push the wrapped thread together. This way, it stays straight, doesn't twist, and you don't have gaps that let the Styrofoam show through.

What may sometimes cause problems is that the yarns' thread doesn't unwind properly and gets tangled. This issue has happened to me several times. 😁To not lose patience here and fret too much! 🤬 You can also cut off the wool thread in between and fasten it with the U-shaped pin. Note here only that you attach it again to the bottom! After that, take a moment and untangle the skein to continue the wrapping process afterward.

Now attach the new end of the woolen yarn (with loop) again with a U-shaped pin and continue wrapping where you left off. Once you have finished wrapping the first half, remove the first floral wire (if the structure is already sturdy enough), or push it along the wreath so that you can continue wrapping without interference. Gradually, you can then remove the floral wire. Once you have wrapped the entire wreath, cut the thread. Again, make sure that you can attach it to the bottom of the Advent wreath with a loop and a U-shaped pin.

Done! Congratulations!

Adding the candles and decorations

Now prepare the candles and candleholders. First, put the candles on the candleholders and set them aside. As you can see in the next picture, I use only teal-colored candles for this Advent wreath. Thus, it stands out somewhat from the Advent wreath's classic image, which usually consists of 3 purple and one pink candle. If you want to get closer to this classic image, I recommend using wool that contains a mixture of pink and purple. If you'd like to find out more about the meaning of colors in Advent wreaths, you can find a detailed description here.

If you are a teal fan like me, another option would be to use 3 teal-colored candles and one white one (for example). Now think about how you want to decorate your woolen Advent wreath. It was essential to me to keep this wreath simple to let it shine in its simplicity and elegance. It was, after all, a bit of work to wrap the wool around the wreath.

As decoration for this Advent wreath, I have rummaged out the wooden Christmas tree decorations from my childhood and the numbers from 1 to 4, which I still had left from another Advent wreath. I picked out four different adorable wooden pendants each, which already had a hanging ribbon attached. The hanging ribbon was convenient here. I could attach the pendant directly to the Advent wreath by using the candle holder spike. Yey! As a result, attaching the candles along with the complementing decorations was a snap, went very quickly, and looked adorable.

Now it was time for the numbering. You don't have to do that, of course, but I really liked the idea of numbers on the Advent wreath. I wanted to attach them in between the candles. Therefore, I prepared 4 wool threads of the same length. The single yarn pulled through the number's eyelet and secured them with a U-shaped pin (also to the bottom of the Advent wreath). Therefore, the thread could run (from the inside to the outside) along with the wreath. It was barely visible due to the matching color.

To set the scene for this stunning woolen Advent wreath, take a decorative plate and spread fir branches evenly on it. It's best to let the fir brushwood protrude a little at the edge to be visible. Then place the wool Advent wreath on top.

Voila! Done.

And thanks to the fir brushwood, a wonderful smell will spread all over your place! Mmmmm delicious! 🤩 Did this post make you want to do some crafts? Do you love to enchant your home with Christmas smells? If your answers are yes, then check out Lynn's DIY post! There you'll find a great tutorial for a homemade orange garland!

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