One other thing I forgot to mention…..I always add 1 or 2 photos to the grave blankets I make. For my Dad's, it's his military portrait (he is buried in a veteran's cemetery) and either a photo of him in later years, or one of our family photos. The cemetery he's buried at gets a lot of visitors during the holiday season and I think it's nice for people to be able to see what he looked like.
With computers, it's so easy to print photos these days. And my husband has a small laminating machine and he laminates the photos prior to me gluing them on.

Nancy

The main reason I originally started making my own blankets was because I wanted something special for my father grave (he died before Christmas in 2003). I started out using only what I could get from my parent's yard (all trees/bushes he planted). They have a good amount of cedar trees, holly bushes (with berries) and birch trees. The cedar does not stand out that well (color-wise), which is why I started adding greenery from Christmas trees.

I normally use a base of chicken wire. The weight of the greens is heavy enough to keep the blanket in place and it just needs to be anchored normally.
This year, I'm a little pressed for time so am going to try the grave pillows. Based on what I've read, I think I'll try using a piece of plywood with a block of craft foam with a piece of craft foam tacked across the foam block. Hopefully, this will give the height that I'm looking for. I'll see how it works out.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their ideas. It has been helpful to me.

Nancy

I haven't see the straw and wool method. Chicken wire is the only foundation, I have personally seen used. Are you making the long grave blankets or the round wreaths for the headstone?

When the designer (at my sister-in-law's shop) created a grave blanket she only used the the wood as a way to carry the grave blanket but not as part of it. Instead she formed the foundation of the grave blanket with chicken wire only. She would use a piece of chicken wire that was just short of the final length of the grave blanket. Sometimes she would piece together chicken wire to make the frame. You can secure the pieces of chicken wire together with your floral wire. Then the greenery was weaved in and out of the chicken wire to form the solid base and then the embellishments were added.

Tip: A cost saving method would be to cut your own greenery. If you have a farm that contains evergreens, you could cut lower branches off and use them.

If you are making wreaths and don't want to use a wreath frame, manipulate your greenery into a semi-circle and attach them together with floral wire. My husband does this with Leyland cypress for our church. He takes a piece of the cypress and bends it slightly to form a curve then adds it to another piece – binding the two with thick floral wire. He keeps going until he forms a circle. He then takes ribbon and binds all of the greenery one more time. Once the base of the wreath is created, you can add your embellishments.

I hope this helps.

Kim Campbell

Thank You
Debbie B