How to Make a Dried Citrus Wreath

Want to make a lovely, minimalist, wreath with dried citrus fruit to hang on your door and spread holiday cheer (or really any time of the year just to look pretty?) I would love to tell you.

Grab some hot cocoa, wrap yourself up in a warm blanket (or if it’s warm while you’re reading this, pour yourself some lemonade) and I’ll teach you how to make a wreath using dried citrus and pine clippings.

If you haven’t already made some dried citrus, you’ll want to head over to our guide first, and then come back here!

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What You Will Need to Make a Dried Citrus Wreath

• A Wreath. I used a golden hoop wreath… they’re inexpensive and give that pretty but minimalist look. I think the one I used may have been a 20 inch one, but you can get them in a variety of sizes.
• Dried citrus
• Hot glue gun
• Hot glue sticks
• Pine clippings (or artificial pine needles)
• Green paddle wire (I had silver wire, but green would blend in better)

Step 1: Collect Your Pine Clippings

Those of you who are using artificial pine needles can skip this step (or go order online or go to the craft store). For those of you who want to use live clippings, you can get them in a number of places.

I got my clippings right from my yard. I have a weeping cedar in my yard where I got most of my clippings, but I also have a few other pine trees in my yard. If you don’t have pine trees in your yard (or if you don’t want to clip right from your trees) you could also visit your local Christmas tree farm or garden center and purchase some. Your local Christmas tree farm may even give them to you.

If you get a live Christmas tree, you might also be able to get some clippings from it if you cut branches from the bottom to make room for Christmas presents.

I liked the look of the weeping cedar branches, but really any type of pine could work.

To get the most life out of a fresh clipping, put the cut branches in a bucket of water overnight up to 24 hours. This gives them a nice long time to get a drink fo water before they’re added to your decorations.

If kept inside, a fresh sprig wreath is supposed to last around 2-3 weeks. In the cold outside, it can last longer. To keep it hydrated, you can use a spray bottle to spray the cut ends. This may extend the life of the wreath a little longer.

Step 2: Arrange Your Dried Citrus Wreath

Lay out your pine clippings so you have an idea of how you want your wreath to look. It won’t stay this way and you will have to disassemble it, but it will give you an idea of how you want it to look when it’s finished.

Step 3: Start Wrapping the Elements to Your Dried Citrus Wreath

I knew I wanted to use this pretty gold hoop for a wreath, but I didn’t have a clue how to do it. I went up to the cashier at Michael’s and asked her how I could make a wreath out of a golden hoop. What was I gluing things to? She kindly explained to me that you used wire to attach things to your wreath, more specifically paddle wire. It was a lightbulb moment for me. Thanks, Michael’s employee for being kind enough to explain this to me and not laughing at me as I tried to describe hot-gluing cardboard to it.

Anyway, you start by wrapping your wire around the wreath several times. You want the wire to be nice and tight. I had wire from a different crafting project which worked fine, but ideally, you’d want the wire made for this kind of craft.

Once your wire is firmly attached, begin wrapping the wire around a sprig of pine. You only need to wrap it around the end of the cutting.

Don’t cut your wire at this point. Just continue adding more pine cuttings and wrapping it around the stem. Be careful not to wrap the wire around the pine needles as this will squish everything together. Just keep it around the branch as much as possible.

Once I reached this point, I did cut my wire because I wanted to have another set of pine cuttings facing the other way. If you were making a wreath that went the whole way around you would not want to cut your wire until the very end.

I repeated the same process with the branches going the opposite way. Again, I chose to do it this way since I  was only using half the ring wreath and because I thought it looked pretty this way.

Step 4: Hot Glue Gun Your Dried Citrus

Now it’s time to start adding your dried citrus to your wreath. I started by placing a few at a time. Now that I had a nice pine clipping base, I was able to hot glue the dried citrus right to it. They didn’t have trouble adhering to the pine cuttings.

You can keep adding dried citrus until it has the look you like. I only added it to one side because that’s the look I was going for, but you can keep going if you’d like to!

Step 5: Hang it On Your Door

Now you’re ready to hang up your wreath! I chose to put mine on my door, and I made things super simple by purchasing an over the door wreath holder. They’re pretty inexpensive and do the job well!

I hope you enjoyed this wintertime project and that you’re able to make one even lovelier for your home!