The Affordable Way To Give A Thrift Store Christmas Wreath A Major DIY Upgrade

Hanging in the holiday aisle at the local thrift, you spot a slightly worn evergreen wreath that's calling your name. Reaching for it, you notice it's a bit bare and in need of fattening up before it will add a touch of winter magic to your home decor. Not to worry: There are a handful of ways you can nurse a starving wreath back to health. All it needs is some more greenery — either real or artificial. Or, lacking the green stuff, think of it as a canvas ready for embellishment with all sorts of holiday baubles.

Take a stroll in the woods to collect an armful of greenery. (Check out our ways to harvest Christmas greenery without harming the plants first.) You can also save trimmings from your real Christmas tree, or grab a second undernourished wreath. A bit of strategic snipping and attaching should yield you a plush evergreen ring worthy of display. Goodwill's shelves may have other piney permutations that you can harvest from. Tabletop trees, weather-worn or incomplete life-size ones, or strands of garland all are raising their hands to be part of your wreath improvements. A few snips with wire cutters later, you'll have a decent pile to work with.

Still coming up empty-handed in your search for greenery in any form? Dollar Tree's selection of faux greenery is hard to beat at $1.75 a bunch. Amazon has packs of Hananona Artificial Pine Branches for around $16 will supply you with enough greenery for this project and a few more, too. Some floral wire, zip ties, or even hot glue should do the trick to hold these additions in place.

Gluing, zipping, and twisting the piney additions to your thrifted wreath has left you with a voluminous wreath ready to hang. Or is it ready? Sometimes, despite best efforts, a project like this ends up with visible glue or wire, or the pieces just don't come together cohesively. A lot of artificial evergreen material is made of wire, so it may only take a bit of bending to "fluff" out the original pieces on the wreath to fill gaps around the new greenery.

Top it with some extras to hide any flaws, and you'll have a beautiful classic Christmas wreath. Ribbons, mini string lights, and ornaments of the right proportions can join forces or stand alone to give your wreath the right polish. If your new material mainly consists of real branches, keep the look organic by affixing pine cones to the greenery, tucking dried flowers, or tying/gluing on wheels of dried oranges.

If it's truly puny, even after a cleanup and fluff, maybe a touch of spray-on frost will give it the boost it needs. Or, forget green all together and spray paint the lackluster greenery in one of these three unexpected colors to use in your Christmas decor. How cute would a pink wreath be when also sporting some vintage-style glass ornaments and velvet bows?