First, let’s gather our materials. You will need:

• A wire wreath base. I used 18 inches, but you can get smaller. I do not recommend bigger because of the weight.

• Indian corn, probably 20 pieces.

• Floral wire

• Hot glue.

Strip most of the husk off your corn. I like to leave the tail or hard end if possible because it gives a good anchoring point to the frame, but if it comes off or the corn doesn't have it attached ,it's still usable.

1. Take the husks you just removed and start forming them into bundles. I did thicker bundles but you do what looks good to you. Just make sure the wire frame is hidden. Try a few out and see if you like them wild and long or shorter and more uniform.

2. The number of bundles is going to depend on your frame size but you will need approximately 20. You might use 10, you might use 20. It just depends on how full you want your wreath. You decide!

3. Take your floral wire and attach it to a section of your wreath frame. Make sure it is secure. Now lay your first bundle on the frame, take your floral wire and wrap it around the bundle, just wrapping the bottom of the bundle. Pull tight. Take your next bundle and lay it over the bottom of the first bundle, covering the wire and attach again. Do NOT cut your wire, just keep wrapping. Keep doing that until you make it all the way around the wreath frame. Make a couple small bundles and place them in at the end to create a cohesive look. Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect.

4. Time to attach the Indian corn. Look at your wreath and start by laying out the corn. I use 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, 9:00 to start and then I fill in in-between that. You can really lay it out however you want but starting with that will give a more uniform look.

5. With your wire that is still attached start wrapping the end of your corn, be sure to go around a few times and pull tight. I had to go up further on the corn with a couple of pieces to make sure they didn’t flop forward, it’s ok. Continue all the way around the wreath. Make sure you move your husks out of the way, you do not want to tie them down to the frame.

6. After the corn is all wired in, go around with a hot glue gun. This might seem like overkill but the corn is heavy and I wanted to make sure it could withstand wind and the opening and closing of the door. I took the hot glue and went along the bottom and sides of the corn pieces and glued them down the the corn husks. Let it cool and check your work!

7. You are now finished! See it was pretty easy. Hang it on your door.

A few lessons I learned along the way.

I first tried attaching the corn by lining them up next to each other with the husks straight out. While it looked really cool it was way to big and way to heavy. I couldn’t figure out how to attach it to the frame and the corn would not lay nicely next to each other. If you had the mini Indian corn it would work great.

I also tried that method again but wrapped the corn in some of the husk to bridge the gaps between the pieces and I was hoping I could use less corn. That didn’t work either, I couldn’t get the corn to attach to the frame and it was still way to big. The corn pieces were flopping everywhere.

I like the look of this wreath a lot and I am really happy with it. Because the corn is dried it can be stored in a mouse free location and used again and again, but if you do not want to store it all the items except the wire and frame can be composted.

I hope you give it a try. If you do please let me know and share your creations with me!