Come Gather 'Round People

DIY wreath
DIY wreath

It's pretty up here in Sonoma County right now.  The seasons are so much more vivid than by the bay, and it's chilly. With an unexpected weekend with no plans, we busied ourselves with some fun fall projects.  After 2 years of sitting idle in the box, we opened up our grinding attachment for our Kitchen Aid mixer and made our first attempt at a handmade whisky-fennel sausage. More on that later.  We also played a mean game of family mud football, complete with a bloody lip, I refinished some campaign chests I found at a thrift store (upcoming feature), and Jasper and I made some wreaths from the shrubs and trees in our back yard.

To make one like ours you'll need gather some olive branches (or sturdy, pliable vines), berry branches, small dark rubber bands and some hot glue. Snip several rubber bands open. Attach the olive branches together, overlapping by about 6 inches. Tie their ends together with the rubber bands, trim to finish. Stretch the wreath to shape. Place berries around wreath, we draped ours to give it more dimension, and hot glue them to the olive wreath.