Morning you guys and happy Friday one and all!

We're going full throttle Christmas with today's tutorial: Festive Cranberry Wreath Place Names! Perfect for a winter wedding, or if you've got a spare moment to dress your table the night before the 25th!

The shopping list is minimal and affordable, time consumed is low, the skill level pretty easy and as long as you can sneakily thieve a few stems of pine from a fresh Christmas tree when no-one's looking (ahem, sorry mum!) then you're ready to go!

As always, a mahoosive thank you to my beau at Old Bear Media for shooting this DIY with us!

Now, Santa hat on (no, that is not optional), mug of cocoa in hand and Bing serenading us in the background and we're not only pretty much a fully fledged elf, but we're ready to DIY!

Let's go!

• Wire - we used floristry wires, but I'd guess some garden wires would work just as well!
• Cranberries - you can get 'em fresh at Sainsbury's
• Tree Foliage - we just snipped 2-3 stems per wreath from our Christmas tree!
• Glue - we used a hot glue gun, but super glue would work as well, if not better
• Brown Card
• Letter Stamps + Black Ink - if your hand writing is considerably nicer than mine, you could of course just used a black pen!

Ok so this first stage is undoubtedly the easiest and most therapeutic! You wanna take a single piece of wire (ours were approximately 15cm in length) and, leaving just under a centimetre bare at the start of the wire, begin to gently pierce it through the cranberries.

Continue threading them on, one by one until your wire is full (around 10 cranberries). You actually don't want the wire to pierce entirely through your final berry, so you're left with no wire showing at one end of the thread, and just under a centimetre of wire at the opposite end (where you started).

Top Tip:

You'll see on each cranberry there's a little brown dot where its stem originally was - aim to pierce through that, so it doesn't show on the final wreath.

At this point, you want to take opposite ends of the wire and begin to carefully bend them towards each other, so they're within reaching distance, and forming a nice circular shape.

Then taking the bare end of the wire, pierce it into the last berry you threaded, completing the circle. Both ends of the wire should now be concealed in the last threaded berry.

Top Tip:

Be gentle! The wire seemed to quite easily and naturally form the wreath's circle, but last thing you wanna do is lose or pop a berry!

We have our perfectly formed little wreath of cranberries, so now to add our stolen pieces of Christmas tree!

Side note: if you're using a hot glue gun like us, make sure to allow time for it to preheat and please use with caution, and equally, if you're using super glue: proceed with caution!

First you'll want to identify which berry you'd like at the top of your wreath (it sounds silly, surely they're all the same, right?! But you'll know what I mean when you do this, there's always a preferred way up!) then add a small dot of glue and, working quickly if you're using a glue gun, place your foliage. Proceed to add another 1 or 2 stems, of varying length as you prefer.

Top Tip:

You might find it easy to add your second and third pieces of foliage by gluing directly on to the foliage, rather than the berry, that way you can layer them up with the original stem.

This penultimate step is pretty crucial if you're creating wreaths for your wedding, or for designated seating this Christmas; adding your guest's name!

We decided to go next level rustic this December and opt not only for our seasonal favourite brown Kraft card, but we also reached for our set of mini letter stamps! We wanted a truly handmade, somewhat hotchpotch feel to our name tags.

We cut our brown card into strips of around 6cm long and just over 1cm wide (cut to fit your stamps) and cut a simple 'V' into one end before stamping (see the images, you'll know what I mean!).

Then stamp away my friends, adding your guest's name or nickname to the card!

Once you're done stamping allow time for the ink to dry (no one likes a smudgie!) and then cut a 'V out of the opposite end, tailoring the strip of brown card to the perfect length for each name.

Top Tip:

If you're like me, you LOVE how a stamped letter looks, but you're a first class dunce when it comes to stamping! I mean, it feels like it should be easy, but it's really not! My stamping experience has taught me as follows: don't be scared to really dowse your stamp in ink, but then press oh-so lightly when actually applying the stamp, that way you won't be plagued with any extra inky additons!

And finally, you simply want to identify which two cranberries you're going to glue your name banner to on the wreath. Apply a small dot of glue to each berry then quickly, but gently, place your card banner in position and apply a little pressure to ensure it's well stuck down

Top Tip:

Aim to stick the top point of the 'V' shape at each end of your banner. As this is the longest point of your piece of card it's the easiest to position as you wish on the wreath.

Now simply place the wreath on a napkin at each place setting and you're good to go!

(A sprinkling of mini jingle bells is optional, but preferred! ;-))

Super cute right?!

We hope you enjoy this simple little tutorial, we figured with all the hype and seemingly unending to-do lists flying around this month the simpler the better, and this DIY really couldn't be easier!

Allow yourself a good 5 minutes per wreath, or set your little elves on the task, and you'll have a gorgeously fresh festive place setting in no time!

Peace + Love

Clare X