How to make a Summer Cocktail Wreath!

If you’re looking for a fun and simple project to help you celebrate summer, then this might be for you! When I think of Summer, I think of hot days, cold pools, and sipping a nice mixed tropical drink (preferably the ones with the little umbrellas with fruit. Growing up in Florida this was easy to come by, but now I live in Massachusetts which means it’s cold at least six months out of the year!

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Just because I’m not in the tropics doesn’t mean I can’t have fun and celebrate summer when it gets here. So this delightful cocktail umbrella wreath is perfect!

I’ve been seeing this circulate on Pinterest for a while now, and every year I promise myself I’m going to make it. This year, I made good on that promise. While it can be time-consuming to make, it’s also cheap and pretty relaxing. I was able to find all the materials either online, or I had them on hand anyway. The most time-consuming part was breaking down the umbrellas so that I could use them properly. While this was fun and fairly easy to make, I wouldn’t suggest it as a child’s project because you’ll need the use of a hot glue gun and scissors.

Besides a hot glue gun, preferably clear glue sticks and scissors, you’ll also need two packs of the cocktail umbrellas. I read the reviews and some of them were saying that the umbrellas don’t open fully. This isn’t too much of a problem since you’ll still be using the defective ones and it’s also why you should still get two boxes. Also, you want to make sure you have multiple colors which was another complaint I saw and actually experienced. My first pack of umbrellas contained mostly red and yellow, and very little orange. You can always use the umbrellas for future drinks or to even make more of these wreaths to give away to others.

To start, you’re going to want to take only the colored tissue part of the umbrella. This can be a bit time consuming and please don’t worry if it tears or things like that. These pieces are going to be used to cover up the white of the styrofoam. this is probably the slowest part of the process. I found that holding onto the white top tip of the umbrella and twisting the rest of it (tissue and everything else, will separate it from the toothpick, from there, it’s just careful separation of the little white slats from the tissue paper.

How to make a Summer Cocktail Umbrella Wreath

After you’ve separated enough tissues, start gluing them to the white foam wreath. Make sure to cover up all the white of the foam. Also as you glue these pieces on be careful. The tissues are very thin and I burned myself a couple of times trying to press it to the styrofoam. It might even help to use the sticks from the umbrellas to push it down.

How to make a Summer Cocktail Umbrella Wreath

Once you’ve covered your foam wreath with the colored tissue pieces, You’re going to want to start adding the opened umbrellas. Open the umbrella and cut an inch of the toothpick part off at a diagonal. After that, just insert them into the foam wreath. I chose not to do the back so that it would lay flat against the door when hung.

How to make a Summer Cocktail Umbrella Wreath

And you’re all done! hopefully, you like the results! Be sure to tag me on my Instagram so I can check out how it went or if you want to try this idea later, be sure to pin this!

-Heather Autumn

How to make a Summer Cocktail Umbrella Wreath, by autumnbecomes.me