During the week my ten wire rings (yes I know there's only supposed to be five gold rings, but Amazon were selling them in tens!) arrived through the post, so I had no excuse not to make myself a wreath now did I? I'd trimmed some of the lower branches from my little tree, just so it could get used to being part of my Christmas wreaths, but needed more greenery to make a full wreath.

On Sunday we made a visit to the Cheeseboard in Greenwich to stock up our Christmas cheese supply and I saw next door had tree offcuts for a £1 a branch. That's a much better price and so MOH carried two stems around town for the rest of the afternoon. Back home I popped out into the garden and cut some rosemary, holly, ivy and fatsia flowers to add to my stock of materials.

Covering the table with newspaper I set off in search of some wire. I know I have some, but I couldn't remember the safe place I'd put it in but thankfully I found some raffia so made do with that instead. I set about tying greenery into bunches before tying it onto the wire ring. It took a little longer with raffia than wire, but I think it works equally well.

I added bunches of the evergreen offcut we'd bought, some of my little tree and rosemary bunches. I opted not to use the holly, as well wouldn't you know it's prickly and I had enough of the other plants.

When the bunches of greenery filled the wreath's circle I tied bunches of three fatsia flowers and added those around the wreath instead of the orange slices, cinnamon sticks and baubles I used last year. It's a more rustic wreath this year, but given that it cost me approximately £2.15 and an afternoon to make, I'm happy with that.

And I love the fatsia flowers on it. I'll be using those again and when I hung it on our pale green front door this morning, it looked great.

Phew, my Christmas prep is starting to come together! How's yours going?