Looking to give your home some holiday cheer with a colonial twist this year? Come along as we show you how to create beautiful 18th-century pieces using fresh greenery and vibrantly colored apples.
Santa may have his elves at the North Pole, but we have our amazing staff members handcrafting stunning decorations sure to catch your eye. We met with Amanda Doggett at our Colonial Nursery for a look at how to create three different pieces with varying levels of difficulty. She was gracious enough to give us a tutorial for each!
1. Apple Fan
Our apple fans are definitely a crowd-pleaser and lots of folks ask us how they can get their hands on one. You can purchase an already made apple fan at our Colonial Nursery or you can purchase the base on our website and create your own. If you live locally, the wooden forms are also available at the Colonial Nursery though supplies are very limited. Now, Amanda shows us how to make one in the video below.
2. Apple Candle
This one is the easiest of them all and a great way to get the kids involved! All you need is an apple, a candle cup with a spike (like these, a web search for ‘candle cups’ brings up lots of options), some greenery, and a candlestick. The items are all for sale in the Colonial Nursery. Simple, right? First, push the candle cup into the top of the apple. Take pieces of greenery and push the stems into the apple around the candle cup. Use any greenery you’d like. Amanda used boxwood and holly for ours. Then place the candle in the cup and it’s ready to light up your table! Check out a time lapse of Amanda creating one in the video below.
3. Candle Cascade
The final project is creating a candle cascade. The cascade will then be placed on a candlestick. What you’ll need are an OASIS O-DAPTER, an OASIS foam cylinder piece, a candle cup, greenery, wired straw flowers, dried fruit, wheat, and a candle. The items are all available at the Colonial Nursery as well.
First, you need to make sure your foam is wet. This will water all of the live elements you’re placing into the foam. Place the damp foam into the O-DAPTER, put the candle cup directly into the center of the foam, and push the stems of your greenery around the sides of the foam to create a wreath-like shape around the candle cup. Amanda used Fraser fir and boxwood for this piece. She’ll walk you through the rest of the steps in the video below. This demonstration is also still going on inside the nursery.
There you have it! Three beautiful Colonial Williamsburg pieces to decorate your home. As with the apple fan, both the apple candle and the candle cascade are also available for purchase at the Colonial Nursery.
I recently visited Colonial Williamsburg for the first time and absolutely loved it! I just now found your DIY garden and holiday sight and am totally thrilled. Wish I knew when I was there that I could have purchased the wood form for the apple fan. Is there a way I can purchase that through the web or over the phone? (I probably won’t be able to make a return trip any time in the near future as I live in northern Maine.)
So happy to stumble upon this blog! I grew up visiting Colonial Williamsburg every year and having purchased a colonial home just outside of Richmond two years ago, we try to do as much colonial inspired decor as possible. I’ll have a post of our Christmas home tour up on my blog this coming Monday and would love any feedback!
Blair, we’re glad you found us too! Feel free to link to our blog post within yours and send then us a link when it’s up. I’m looking forward to checking it out.
Amanda: I know what I about to ask is a “sin” to some but here it goes……Could you use artificial fruit and greens to make this? It would be very difficult for me to find the greens for this, just a thought. Thanks.
Pet, I don’t see why you couldn’t and then you could always use them again next year! If you decide to create one, we’d love to see a picture. You can upload it here. Good luck!
Hi! Yes, you can! Celebrations in CW sells some great faux Magnolia leaves and apples. I don’t see a thing wrong with using some artificial elements; let the past meet the present, right?
As a purist, I have to say that I don’t really go along with CW’s holiday decorations. Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but even CW has come forth and admitted that their whole Christmas celebration is a stretch, because anyone who knows their American history well enough knows that at in the 1770’s, people just didn’t celebrate Christmas - or at least not like we do today. It was more of a solemn occasion, and most people considered Christmas Day just another workday. And IF they had celebrated, they would most likely NOT have used apples, oranges, pineapples, or other fruit in their decorations, because, even in the South, at that time period, fruit was considered an expensive luxury, and if a family could have afforded to buy fruit, they would have eaten it - it would have been unheard of and considered an extravagant waste of money to use it for mere decoration. So while we can have fun with a “what if” approach, but if you want to be a purist, forego the fancy Christmas stuff if you’re portraying your home in the colonial era.
How do you decorate your home for the holidays, Vicki? I’d love some ideas!
vicki, the story of the christmas decorations at cw has been told many times. Several decades ago when the duke was still in the restoration process, there were many private homes occupied by williamsburg citizens. An idea was posed in order to bridge modern christmas lights with something more fitting for the 1700’s. A contest was created to inspire everyone. The decorations have evolved thru the years, using only materials that would have been available.
I have been making a small plaque for on our front door for years and years. After dealing with pineapple juice running down the door due to the fluctuating temperatures here in New Jersey, we put 3 nails UNDER the pineapple making a little shelf and removed those that would pierce the fruit and result in the leaks. We also drilled two holes where the neck of the pineapple is so I can wire the top securely. No more ugly drips down the door and the plaque lasts much longer.
What a great idea, Ann!