Quickly and easily make a wheat sheaf for your fall decor or harvest table centerpiece with this simple step-by-step guide.
Every fall for the last five years or so, I’ve found myself really wishing I had one (or more!) of these wheat sheaf things that I keep seeing around. I’ve almost just ordered some online a few times, but they were always pretty costly so I just decided I could do without. THEN I got the idea in my head that I could just make a wheat sheaf! Well, that was about 3 years ago and of course I never got up the nerve to actually try that out either. We always have wheat growing in one of the fields behind our house every year, but the harvest happens in July usually so I pretty much just miss the boat because I’m not quite in the fall mood yet.
Well, this year Chris got tired of listening to me talk about wanting to make these things and so he went out right after the harvest this year and picked a bunch of the stragglers on the edge of the field that weren’t harvested. So I had to make one this time.
And I did!
How to Make a Wheat Sheaf
Here’s how you can too!
Start out with a bunch of wheat! A really big handful should be enough, so basically whatever you can comfortably carry back from the field with you will work. If you don’t happen to have a wheat field right behind your house, wheat stalks can be purchased at craft stores or online. Our field wheat is probably a little rougher looking than the store bought stuff, but it still worked just fine!
Next, you need to start gathering your wheat stalks in little bundles of about five, and lining the tops all up straight next to each other. Like this!
Hold that little bundle in your hand and add another lined-up bundle just like it to the one in your hand, but do it on a bit of an angle. So have the original bundle sticking straight up in your hand, and the new bundle kind of sticking off to one side towards your fingers at a 45 degree angle.
Don’t worry about it too much, just tilt the tops off to one side a bit. It will work out so easily once you start adding more. Promise!
Adding Bundles
So now, grab the whole thing and turn it in your hand about a 1/4 turn and then add another small bundle of lined-up stalks, again, on a bit of an angle. It helps if you have a little helper who can keep handing you tidy little bundles as you add them. 🙂
Here’s how it looks after you’ve turned your bundle a few times and added a few more angled bundles.
See how they’re all just on sort of a slight angle? That’s what makes it!
So just keep turning and adding bundles until you’ve used up all of your wheat! Then grab a bit of twine or string and tie it tightly right where you were holding it.
Related: DIY Harvesty Corn Bundles
Ta-da! It’s looking pretty good so far, isn’t it?
Very harvesty indeed!
The tops will be all neatly lined up and pretty, but the bottom will probably be pretty scraggly and long still.
Grab some scissors and trim the bottom as straight as you can. You’ll want to create a flat surface so that it will stand up. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just straight-ish. You can fiddle with it later to make it stand how you want it to.
It worked!
You have a wheat sheaf!
Tidy it up and Display
Now just clean up some of the little pieces that are sticking out everywhere, add a pretty ribbon and you’re all set for celebrating the harvest!
These should last really well year-to-year as long as you keep them stored somewhere that mice can’t find them!
“Yum! Look at all that tasty wheat!”, say all the mice that seem to seek refuge in my house every fall!
Now that I know how easy it is to make a wheat sheaf, I’m definitely going to make some more next year to place all around the house!
Do you have a favorite harvest craft that you’ve made?
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.