News

Making Straw Wreath Bases

It might be the last day of August but, as the kids go back to school, thoughts turn to Christmas and orders for our straw bases are starting to arrive.

We do hold some stock of made up wreath bases over the rest of the year which get used for a variety of other crafts but once the seasonal wreath orders start, we try and replenish stock as and when we can.

The wreath binding machine wraps a filament around the straw and binds it to the frame. To save space it gets put away every year so today it has been dragged out of storage, dusted, serviced and set up next to the bales of straw to minimise the mess when opening and moving bales in the shed.

A few 10″ rings and 14″ rings were made today so production is officially underway!

Wreath binding machine
Straw wreath bases ready for sale

Seasoned Straight Willow Sticks

It’s wet and windy outside so just the day to cut up a bundle of willow into lengths ready for crafts and the upcoming wreath making season.

The willow is grown on our farm, harvested by hand between November and February/March and then air dried under cover in our barn. We use a small bandsaw to cut up hand selected willow whips into either 60cm or 10cm sticks. The larger sticks are mainly used by schools for various crafts and the smaller ones used for log bundle picks for decorating Christmas wreaths.

10m Reel of natural hemp string

Hemp String back in stock

The popular small 10m reels of natural hemp string are back in stock. These are fantastic around the house and garden as well as for crafts.

We use it on our woodland burial wreaths to bind foliage to a twig base such that we comply with the requirement for everything being biodegradable. We also do bigger reels of jute twine which are more cost effective but are a bit cumbersome to hold whilst making wreaths.

As with everything, there is a small price increase but not as shocking as it might have been. They are now at £1.80 a reel.
Click here to buy.

Holly Plants

We try and add a minimum of 100 new holly plants a year in order to keep up with the growing demand for freshly cut holly for wreath making.

It is all planted as dual purpose, more often than not it is planted alongside the farm stock fencing to provide a substantial barrier for livestock whilst still allowing a ‘crop’ of holly to be harvested for our wreaths. More recently we have added rows of holly to act as windbreaks for other, more delicate, horticultural crops and this has been quite successful.

We took these plants as cuttings last year and will grow them on in pots until November this year when they will be planted out. It might be 15 years or so before these plants are providing a good annual holly harvest.

Holly plants grown from cuttings

Website Checkout Live

We are still wrestling with the new website configuration and uploading products. Today we have added payment options and shipping for online orders. Please do get in touch if anything doesn’t seem right.

Postage is calculated by the weight of the total order. At the moment we only have standard shipping available which is equivalent to 2nd Class and usually takes 3-4 working days to be delivered. We hope to add more options later.

Please watch the shipping costs as it is easy to jump from normal parcel charges to a charge for a pallet. For multiple heavy items, the cheapest way may well be to do multiple orders keeping the weight under 15kg.

If you are local, please just get in touch and we will sort out a convenient time for you to collect your order and save the ever growing cost of postage.

Please watch the shipping costs as it is easy to jump from normal parcel charges to a charge for a pallet. For multiple heavy items, the cheapest way may well be to do multiple orders keeping the weight under 15kg.

For order queries or smaller quantities please ring Rob or Nikki on 07955 095234 or email wreathkits@gmail.com

To arrange an appointment to collect large orders please ring 07834 324080

Changes

Rapidly rising costs

Due to the rapid changes in costs we are going to have to do things differently if we are to get through this period of inflation.

Thoughts are that we continue to do mail order for smaller quantities via ebay and have larger quantities collect only direct from the warehouse where the cost savings of labour, packaging and shipping costs can be passed on to our customers who can bulk buy in this manner.

The previous websites we operated have now been closed down to save money and we will be concentrating on rebuilding this one up to reflect the new way of working.

We are still trading in the interim.

We really do apologise for the obvious inconvenience to our loyal customers and, of course, any suggestions are very welcome!