Advent Welcome Rings - a village venture

Some months ago the Village in Bloom group and the local parish church flower group began planning to make door rings and pomanders for the village, using local greenery. The idea really took off - we have spawned a monster! With a group of 8 people and orders for 55 rings and 4 pomanders, we have really had our work cut out. We spent the first part of the day mossing up the rings then managed to produce 30-odd rings on the day working from 10.00 - 5.45 with a sandwich lunch on the job. We have planned another session on Tuesday evening in hopes of finishing the job. At first, I was chuffed to think that the idea - which was originally mine - had taken off so well. As the orders came in and the scale of the job became apparent I began to feel a little sheepish about it!



We started with a heap of fresh evergreen plant material collected on Friday from around the village.

Next we packed our wire rings with moss, binding it around with wire till it gave a firm base for the greenery.

After this, the greenery s gathered into bunches and bound in, again with florists' wire, to cover the ring completely. The art is to make a 'pattern' and include bunches of similar material at intervals around the ring.The final stage is to add wired fir cones and ribbon bows to the taste of the customer. This person wanted gold ribbon. Many chose red or red and green tartan.

Here's an example of a pomander. Some people wanted these so they could make use of their summer hanging basket brackets.

After the second lot have been made and more of them become apparent in the village I shall take a few door photos.