Craft: I Made a 100% Natural Autumn Wreath

The photo at the top shows the natural things I used to make an autumn wreath. You can see it on my door in the other picture. I made the base out of honeysuckle from my garden. All I did was pick several long honeysuckle vines, strip off the leaves, coil the longest vine into a loop then bind the rest around that, looping them over and over as I went, tucking the ends between earlier strands. 

Then I picked and stripped a few more honeysuckle vines and cut small bunches of autumn berries from bushes laden with them at the moment. I lashed the bunches of berries to the base with the leftover vine. Everything in the wreath is plants and leaves and berries that will biodegrade, and it was quick and easy to do. I'll admit I used a small amount of natural garden twine to tie the wreath to my door knocker, but I could probably have used honeysuckle for that as well.

For a more permanent wreath I could have let the base dry and then lashed dried leaves and berries to it, but I wanted to experiment with crafting from freshly foraged plants. Wreaths like this would be great to make for a Samhain gathering. They could be hung outdoors from trees knowing they wouldn't harm the environment - although obviously don't leave anything at a sacred site or anywhere except your own garden or property without permission.

I'll be blogging more about crafting Samhain or Halloween decorations later in the month. Here are links to some earlier crafting projects:

• Basket from foraged honeysuckle.
• Macrame charm bracelet
• Poppet of protection for dark nights
• Halloween mandala for October

There are more ideas for seasonal activities in my new book Pagan Portals - Rounding the Wheel of the Year, published by Moon Books. Copies can be found at Treadwell's bookshop at 33 Store Street, Bloomsbury, London, or online at Amazon.

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