Kat, I do not know of any book per se. I can give you good guidance anyway. You want a maple rigde wreath master. I would suggest buying a table with it. Around $250 or so. You can buy rings from them, mitchells, or Oregon wire. Oregon wire has some nice painted or dipped ones. They are a little more then the others. Once you have your wreath machine email me and I can give you great directions or you can call me. If you are planning on selling them, find you a market and do a good research plan ie.. Go to all the craft stores around, home decor stores, florist shops, wholesale florists, farmer markets, and gift shows.

As you will find out one persons bursting land won't be enough unless you only want to make a few. We cut pussywillow on a few hundred acres of land (mainly pasture). A good truck load only makes about 50 wreaths.

Good luck!

I wish I could make wreaths out of snow.

Wendy thanks for sending another one!

Bryan

Bryan, thank you for your response. I will look into the Maple Ridge wreath master, do you have suggestions as to where to purchase one? I live in a relatively small town so it would have to be on line I expect. As to market, I already grow cut flowers for our local market, not big, but I think perhaps an addition of custom wreaths might boost the business a little. I guess the idea of shaving all the firs and cedars on the property down to nubs might not be such a good one, eh!! Will pussy willow grow in the woods or does it need pasture? Do you make wreaths year round? In other words do you do the whole 'spring with dried flowers from last year' thing, and if so do you use the same wreath machine with grape vine or something?
Tks again. Kat

Here is Maple ridge's #1-800-968-9627. Tell them you want a wreath master and table. You can cut some of your own, it depends on if you like to keep them cut back. Willows will grow good in the woods.

We make twig wreaths from November-June, Christmas from November-December, living wreaths from April-June, Floral wreaths June-November. Most often we are out of florals by December. In the spring we do twig and boxwood or salal.

Bryan

Bryan, thanks for the wealth of info. Your wreath business must be huge. Do you sell on line by any chance?
Kat

I do not sell online yet. We have a lot of floral wholesalers, big home decor, and 2 multile store craft/home decor/wholesale places. We do deliveries in Idaho, Utah, and Las Vegas, NV. We also do 5 to 7 art/craft shows a year and 3 farmers markets.

In the process of getting ready for taxes, I have found that between the four other people that do wreaths around they were 2nd, 4th, 5th and 7th in our overall sales. It is nice having other wreath makers buying so much from us. In fact we do some shows together. It seems to be as profitable or more profitable to sell big bundles of product to the other wreath makers.

I have some pics from some of the shows and wreaths if you want them.

Thanks. Have a good time.

PS here is a URL that I recently came across. Click on the video of Creekside Farm. It shows how they make wreaths.

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/sku7796196/index.cfm?bnrid=3100117&cm_ven=WS&cm_cat=General&cm_pla=SiteMap&cm_ite=Products&CM_REF=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.williams-sonoma.com%2Fprod%2Fsku8400913.jsp

Bryan, thanks so much for the link. Geeezeee what an operation. Is your acreage similar to theirs? I can only dream of such things. It makes my small 60 acres (most of which is forest) seem rather insignificant. Mind you, I am doing this business solo, so I can only do what I can do, right? Is the wreath maker that they are using in the video the same kind that you recommended? Do you step on a pedal to clamp the tines together? Thanks again. Kat

That is quite an operation. I wish they had been there when we lived over the hill in Monterey, CA. Our operation is more geared toward twig wreaths, but we do use about the same amout of acres/product. I visited another operation like that one in Somis, CA. Hundreds of acres and tons of Eucalyptus. Start out small and have fun with it. When you get to be that big it usually is no longer fun. The wreath maker that they were using looked like a mitchell. There was no arm that came down and tighted the wreath. Both types do require that you push down on a foot pedal. It looks like we need a road trip out to the sunny/rainy west coast.

Good luck. Bryan