Citrus Wreath Tutorial | HOW TO DRY CITRUS + Decorate with it!

A citrus wreath that smells of Christmas!

Last week I saw a few pins on pinterest that had dried orange slices on them and I was hooked! That’s what inspired this wreath!

Originally I was thought this would make a cute Christmas wreath but, after showing it to my friend she’s like “NO WAY” it’s totally a fall wreath! LOL😂 That explains the title of this wreath because, I couldn’t decided between the two!! What do think? Is it a fall or Christmas wreath?

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Time Needed: 20-45

The time really depends on whether you buy or make your basic pine wreath.

Cost: $17

This wreath only cost me $17 to make. If you plan to purchase a pre-made pine wreath the price may fluctuate.

Supplies:

2 Oranges
3 Maderines
Wood Sticks
Twine
Hotglue
14″ Grapewine Wreath ( amazon sells 12″ here- https://amzn.to/2UtYOas )
5 Pine Sprig Bushes ( amazon has a great deal here – https://amzn.to/2y4roHP )
Pine cones ( I found some here- https://amzn.to/3bmLHyE )

Drying your Oranges and Mandarine !

For this wreath you’ll need to dry some orange slices and some mandarine peels. When picking my madarines I tried to pick ones with thicker and harder skin. Also if the madarine is too ripe the skins becomes too flimsy and it’s hard to make cuts in them. I started with my oranges first. I sliced them into 1 cm strips cross ways to show the pretty orange pattern. Than I used a paper towel and blotted out any excess juice from each orange slice before putting them on a baking sheet and sticking them in the oven. My first batch burned to a crisp. 300 degrees Fahrenheit just doesn’t cut it! I did some research and found this tutorial.

A good source!

https://www.muminthemadhouse.com/how-to-dry-orange-slices/. In her tutorial she says to leave them in the oven for three hours at 200 F flipping once. She did however mention that a wire rack is best for this. I didn’t have one so I had to use a baking sheet. You also have to let them dry overnight! MMMM 😐! I Just didn’t have time for that! I needed them done that day so, I pumped up the heat to 250 F and they dried pretty quick but I noticed they started browning. You have to keep a watchful eye on them. Check every 15 minutes because once they start burning it browns pretty quick! For best results I would just follow her tutorial.

How to prep citrus prior to drying!

To prep my mandarins I cut them in half and pulled all the juicy mandarins out. Than I used my exacto knife and carefully cut slithers out making sure not to cut through each end.

Here’s what the slithers looked like.
Here’s what I mean by not cut the slithers all the way to the end. I dried them the same way I dried my orange slices.

DIY Mini Firewood Ornaments!

Okay truth be told this was a cheesy take on cinnamon sticks! I’ve seen wreaths with cinnamon sticks wrapped in twine and was totally in love! But, in order for me to get some the didn’t cost a fortune I had to order them online. I’m not a huge fan of shopping online so I had to think of another way to make this work! If you’ve been to hobby lobby recently you’ve probably seen the aisles and aisles of Christmas Decor! That’s where I came across fake little firewood ornaments that looked like birch tree. They totally reminded me of the cinnamon sticks wrapped in twine and that’s when a light bulb went on! I thought why not make some from sticks I could find in the yard. Bada bing bada boom 😬!!

These are so easy to make! I just used some branch loppers and cut a bunch of twigs off our tree in the backyard. Than I cut them down to size with the loppers. To arrange the firewood groups of three seemed to look best. Two thicker twigs on the bottom and one skinny one on top. I hot glued the firewood together before tying some twine around it.

Making a basic pine wreath!

I’ve become really fond of making wreaths!! Can you tell LOL🙈! I hope I’m not boring you with all these wreaths! I promise next week I have exciting things coming! YES!! More fall DIYS! Stay tuned! The reason I’m in love with making wreaths is because they’re so easy to make! I’m honestly surprised by the price tag of pre-made wreaths you could buy at stores. $80 – $100 for a wreath sounds kind of crazy but, than again on second thought I would probably sell mine for that much just because I love it so much and wouldn’t want to let it go 😂 !

To make this wreath you can probably buy a basic pine wreath for base instead of wrapping pine around a grapevine wreath. 😆WOW I literally just thought of that! I swear sometimes I get so carried away with a DIY I don’t think until it’s to late😑! Anyhow if you maybe like ummm 😬can’t find a pine wreath you can do what I did 😂!

I should mention these little pine bushes were love at first sight! I love the thin long pine needles 😍. Not sure if they sell basic pine wreaths that have that. I only used 4 pine bushes and that was kind of sucky because I ended up not having enough. Should of bought 5. Again LOL 😅😆 Learn from my mistakes just buy 5 bushes for a 14″ grapevine wreath! I didn’t hot glue my bushes I just stuck the stem into the wreath and wrapped the pine sprigs around the wreath.

troubleshooting!

😐If the store is out of stock and you only get 4 then you can fill in the gaps with small pine sprigs like I did. Cut off areas the are too full and fill in the bald spots😅!!

Or just buy one on amazon! Sure saves time if you have patients for shipping 😬

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Assembling the Citrus Orange Wreath!

Onto the fun stuff! This only requires three easy steps!

#1 Hot glue all your orange slices and peels

#2 Hot glue your firewood ornaments

#3 Hot glue your pine cones

TIPS:

When adding bright ornaments to a wreath I like to work in odd numbers. Somehow this seems to work out the best for me. I also hate when something looks too patterned. I try not to attach the same ornaments at an even distance apart and always try and change their angle. So you can see the side on one, the other side on the next and so on. Like vertical, almost horizontal and opposite direction! WOW does that even make sense 🙈. Oh but, some ornaments can only have a top view like my mandarin peels 😀 !