April makes a wreath using 10 vintage Christmas corsages — gorgeous!

Our tutorials to make wreaths using Christmas ornaments have inspired ornament wreath mania, methinks, and now, reader April has trumped us all with this drop dead gorgeous creation: A wreath made using 10 vintage Christmas corsages plus some extra Kitschmas baubles to fill in and accentuate here and there. Oh my: I now “need” to collect corsages, too, who needs a retirement fund, anyways? 

Yes: Christmas corsages. These were popular in mid-century America — a popular Christmas day gift for the lady of the house to wear to church and the day’s family get-together. They were made by florists and also manufacturers, using ornaments and greenery all wired together just like… prom corsages today. Jump over to etsy or ebay and type in “vintage Christmas corsage” and behold hundreds, even thousands, of examples. These things were popular.

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How April made her vintage Christmas corsage wreath

Here is how April did it, she writes:

Hi Pam,

When I saw your great tutorial last year on making wreaths, I was determined to try my hand at it this year.

I had such vivid memories of my mom, aunts and grandmothers wearing Christmas corsages in the 50’s and 60’s, I thought they would be perfect to incorporate into a wreath.

I searched Ebay and Etsy for corsages, Some of the corsages were full enough to use on their own, while others I thought needed a few things added — I found that once I placed them on the wreath, I needed something more to fill in the gaps.

As an example, I purchased a couple of corsages for their beautiful orange ribbons. One had the Santa face, but the other didn’t have anything, so I found some vintage reindeer picks and added one to the other.

I took apart a large corsage and used it to make a pair for either side, adding the cute little snowmen picks I had found.

I also bought miniature ornaments in different sizes, and with the smallest ones added old chenille pipe cleaners for stems, and put a few of those in as well.

The cute red bottle brush trees at the bottom are half trees that were worn as brooches, and the angels were a find on Ebay that seemed to work, with a little bottle brush tree between them. I used a few small Shiny Brite ornaments to fill in, just to break up all the tiny stuff going on.

I think in all I used 10 corsages on the wreath, and filled in with bits and pieces from 2 more, as well as adding the mini ornaments. I also used a few vintage silver leaves and some lacquered holly leaves that back a lot of the corsages to fill in as well. A hot glue gun (like the one you recommended ) worked great to secure everything in place.

The wreath size is a 14″ wrapped in gold tinsel.

It was a fun project, and most of all, it brought back some wonderful memories of those ladies all decked out in their fancy corsages at Christmas.

Thanks again for all your wonderful inspiration each and every day.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

Best, April

Thank you for sharing this, April. I can’t wait to make my own — but yours looks like it will be hard to beat!