Dried Fruit Wreath - Part 2

What should have been yesterdays post, today!

If the Christmas theme of yesterday was a bit too early for you, I apologise, it was a day or so earlier than planned, but it is going to start getting more and more Christmas-themed as I am going to start to really struggle to think of anything else.  However; today I post Part 2 of my dried fruit wreath attempt, so something for pre and post Christmas to make your home look and smell all lovely.

Part 1 - Drying the Fruit can be found here.

I decided to make my own heartish-shaped wreath, however; whichever shape you choose, the basic methods will be the same.  To do this, I used thick beading wire, [20 ga].  For a more sturdy wreath that will keep it's shape and not move - go thicker, however; you will need wire cutters.
If you don't have wire to hand, or readily available or don't want to use it, you could thread your pieces of fruit with string or ribbon, or buy a wooden/ready made wreath to attach your fruit to.

The length of wire I cut was a little bit of a guesstimate, guided by lining my fruit up and cutting around 10cm longer than its length so that I had room to work with.
In the centre, I folded the wire and twisted the sides together at around 2cm, which formed the centre of my heart and acted as my guide for the size of the rest of the wreath:

I like things to be symmetrical, so divided my fruit in to equal halves and simply began threading, a section of fruit / colour at a time, starting one side and then following on the other:

When all of my fruit had been used and I was happy with the order/look of the wreath, I moulded the wire into the heart shape I wanted, fixing securely at the bottom by winding the wire together and then trimming, leaving around 2cm at the ends.

separating the wires, I threaded them back in to each side to hide and tidy away:

To finish I also added a silver bow to the centre of the heart using this technique.

To hang, I found some thin wire, which I tied in a knot either side of the top [this also helped the wreath keep its heartish shape], however; strong thread, string or ribbon will hang your wreath nicely, if you don't have a hook or nail to fix it to.

I am pretty pleased with the outcome.  If you wanted a bit more Christmas added, you could add decorations such as bells/pine cones or tie bows around the wreath and add them between the fruit as you thread them.  If you have fairy lights that could be incorporated, the fruit segments [orange in particular] look fantastic with the light behind them [but do be careful and don't leave them unattended].

Have you made your own wreath this year?  I'd love to see them [thethingsshemakes@yahoo.co.uk]