How to Make a Christmas Wreath with Vintage Christmas Decorations

This set of three vintage-themed Christmas wreaths are a few years in the making, and I'm so excited about how they came out! Of course you can find all sorts of tutorials on how to make vintage ornament wreaths with Shiny Brite ornaments (check out Harris Sister Misty's vintage ornament wreath), but not only are they expensive to make if you have to purchase all of the ornaments, but vintage ornaments are also a little more in demand and if you're lucky enough to find a set in good condition, you might want to actually use them as ornaments. 

But, there are all sorts of vintage materials that you can use to make a Christmas wreath, and the materials were what drove this project for me.

I found the three vintage plastic Christmas cookie plates at a thrift store last year for a whopping 50 cents (for all three). I remember we had trays like these when we were growing up, so I would date these circa the late 1970s. And you can't beat the graphics on them!

I knew immediately that I wanted to make a set of three wreaths with these trays featured prominently in the center, but I also wanted to find vintage plastic holly and poinsettias to go with the 1970s trays.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find the 1970s-era plastic greenery until this September when I scored a plastic holly wreath with poinsettias, a plastic holly candle ring, and a plastic Christmas tree wall hanging. Here they are with their thrift store tags still on them. 

Now, before I get started on the DIY tutorial for these vintage themed Christmas wreaths, I will say that I didn't have the heart to break apart the Christmas tree wall hanging. Both the large wreath and the candle ring were missing pieces (chunks of greenery), so I didn't feel bad about taking those apart. So, if you happen to find broken or incomplete supplies for your wreath, remember that you're just taking them apart anyway, so you might be giving those items a new life!

Vintage Christmas Tray Wreath Supplies

• Pine wreath form
• Vintage plastic greenery (holly, pine, poinsettias, etc.)
• Vintage Christmas tray or cookie plate (plastic or tin)
• Chenille stems or wire
• Hot glue gun and glue

Directions for How to Make a Vintage Cookie Tray Christmas Wreath

1. Fluff up your wreath and reposition any branches. Position a layer of branches toward the center of the wreath to help with holding the plate in position.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Cut apart your vintage plastic greenery. "Dry fit" your greenery pieces around the wreath and make sure that you're happy with their placement.
3. Once you're happy with how everything looks, just hot glue all the greenery in place.
4. Hot glue chenille stems to the back of the plastic vintage plate.
   
5. Position the plastic vintage plate in the middle of the wreath, using the layer of branches you moved toward the center to "hold" the plate in place while you work (moving some in front of the plate and some in back of the plate to "sandwich" the plate in between until secured).
   
   
   
   
   
6. Wrap the chenille stems around the wire frame of the wreath on the back, checking the front of the wreath to ensure the plate is positioned how you want it to be before fastening securely.
7. Fluff up the layer of branches around the front of the plate, ensuring that any cracks around the edges of the plate (which are common in these vintage plastic plates) are covered by the wreath branches or greenery.

Here's a few close up photos to show how these vintage inspired Christmas wreaths turned out:

And as it turns out, the vintage greenery matched the holly on the Santa cookie trays and the poinsettias on the poinsettia tray pretty well!

Notes:

Vintage cookie trays often turn up in thrift stores (which is where I found this set), but if you're looking for a particular pattern, you can hunt them down on sites like eBay and Etsy. The set I used was plastic, but tin cookie trays would also work for this purpose since they're light enough to be suspended in the middle of a wreath form.

Adding extra greenery (of any kind) will add extra volume to a standard wreath base. In this case, I used vintage plastic Christmas greenery to add an extra "kitsch" factor to these wreaths and to match the decade of the plates as best I could. However, you can also use this trick when creating any wreath. I used this same technique on my front door Christmas wreath to create a fuller wreath base.

For these wreaths, I chose to use vintage Christmas trays and vintage plastic greenery, but you could also use many different types of vintage Christmas items to create a wreath. Be on the lookout for vintage Christmas items like: 

• ornaments
• bubble lights
• light covers
• light reflectors
• Christmas corsages
• cupcake toppers or picks
• Christmas costume jewelry (check out Harris Sister Deanna's costume jewelry tree)
• small decorations
• figural stocking hangers
• small toys
• Santa, elf, or deer figures
• holiday salt and pepper shakers that are missing mates
• Christmas cookie cutters

A collection of any of these items would make a show-stopping wreath. And don't forget that you could always choose a tinsel garland wreath base instead of a pine wreath base if that suits your project better!

There you go! If you've got about 30 minutes, you can create a trio of vintage inspired Christmas wreaths!

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