Embroidery hoop wreath with pinecone flowers

I finally got in on the embroidery hoop wreath trend. Here’s my version:

I found the embroidery hoop at a thrift store (for $2) a couple weeks ago. Then I looked around my house for artificial flowers to decorate it with. I didn’t have any that I liked. What I did have was a whole basket full of pinecones, so I decided I’d use them to make my own flowers.

Materials and tools

Here’s a full list of the tools and materials I used for this wreath:

• 14 1/2 inch embroidery hoop
• A couple of big pine cones
• Leaves stripped off one stem of dollar store faux flowers
• Faux berries
• Five wooden beads
• White milk paint
• Green chalk paint
• Small paint brush
• Five big metal washers
• Glue gun and glue sticks
• Scissors or pliers (to remove the scales from the pinecones)

Descale the pinecones

Before I could start building my wreath, I had to make my flowers. And in order to make my flowers, I had to remove the scales from my pinecones because they were going to become the flower petals.

I tried a few different methods to remove the scales, and what worked best for me was to pull them off by hand or with the help of my trusty old rusty pliers.

Some of the scales made a clean break with the cone, while others ended up with split ends when I broke them off. It didn’t matter. I only needed some of them to have their pointy end intact. I just trimmed the jagged ends off of the rest.

Once I had the scales removed, I painted them with some white Rust-Oleum Milk Paint that I had on hand. To keep the pinecone debris from contaminating the entire bottle of paint, I poured just a small amount of paint into an empty cat food can and dipped my brush into that.

I painted both the front and back of the scales and did just one coat. I wasn’t looking for perfect coverage. I wanted the scales to have a rustic look.

As I painted, I lined the finished scales up by size and shape.

Making the flowers

I made five flowers for my wreath. Each flower was made out of two layers of scales/petals.

For the bottom layer, I found seven scales that were roughly the same size and trimmed the ends off of them.

Then I glued the scales onto a washer.

For the top layer, I grabbed five smaller scales …

… and inserted the pointy curved ends of them into the hole in the center of the first layer.

I tried to stagger the position of the scales, so the petals on the top were more or less in the cracks between the petals on the bottom. When I had the petals positioned where I wanted them, I attached them with glue.

Next, I dug through my supply of wood beads and pulled out five that looked to be the right size and color to work as the center of the flowers.

I completed the flowers by gluing the center beads into place.

Assembling the wreath

With my flowers done, it was time to start assembling the wreath.

First, I glued the flowers onto the side of the wreath where the wood block closure was, putting the biggest flowers in the center of the group and the smaller ones toward the ends.

I had stripped some leaves off a dollar store flower stalk to use as greenery, but I didn’t like their color or their shiny finish. To give them a flat, chalky look to match the pinecone flowers, I painted them with some celery green chalk paint I had.

The first coat or two seemed to soak into the leaves, but the paint dried quickly, so I just kept applying more coats until I had the leaves looking like I wanted them. Again, I wasn’t going for flawless coverage here. I was happy to have a bit of the dark green peek out here and there.

Once the leaves were painted, I snipped them in half, so each one could be glued on to my wreath individually.

Then I placed the leaves under the flowers and attached them with glue. I tried to give each flower two or three leaves.

I felt like the wreath needed a little something extra yet at this point, so I dug some tiny cream colored berries out of my crafts stash and cut them down into small pieces.

Then I tucked the berries in between the flowers and leaves and glued them into place.

The completed embroidery hoop wreath

And voila: My embroidery hoop wreath was complete.

In my mind’s eye I was thinking the flowers were going to spill out along the side of the wreath. But when I hung the wreath on my door, the flower side (with the wood block under it) kept slipping down to the bottom. Apparently my mind’s eye had forgotten to account for gravity.

I don’t necessarily mind the flowers being on the bottom. It’s not the look I was going for, but it isn’t bad.

Although now I’m wondering if it needs something at the top to balance out the flowers at the bottom. What do you think? Should I add a little “welcome” banner or something like that across the top? Or should I leave it as is? Let me know in the comments below.

For more great wreath ideas, including lots of other hoop wreaths, check out my Pinterest board. And for other wreaths I’ve made, go to my wreath archives.

— Lisa