For Mary Closner, any time is the right time to hang a decorative wreath.
She’s created them for Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Easter and Pride. She’s made one-of-a-kind pieces to celebrate not just holidays, but hobbies and special events ― from wreaths made of golf balls and Pez dispensers to playing cards. She even did a dog wreath with printed fabric photos of a client’s dogs and hung with dog tags for all their pets, past and present.
Even when she’s making a wreath for a traditional holiday, Closner always tries to add a clever touch. For a family that celebrated both winter holidays, she created a wreath that was half Christmas, half Hanukkah. Sometimes she opts out of the traditional ring shape, creating square wreaths, or, for a retired dairy farmer, a wreath with a massive papier-mâché cow’s head bursting through the center.

Closner works out of a tiny downtown Northfield studio that’s packed “tight as a tick” with stacked boxes of artificial flowers, wax fruit, plastic dinosaurs, trolls, fake snow and plastic, glass and vintage ornaments. There’s an entire boxful of painted silver seashells. Another of 250 gold dinosaurs waiting for their debut.
“Ornaments are not just round balls and solid colors,” she said. “I can even custom glitter or paint glass ornaments to produce a client’s favorite color combinations.”
This eclectic inventory comes from Closner searching eBay, Etsy, garage sales, antique stores and Christmas clearance sales.
Sometimes, her work starts with a few existing elements, and she fills in from there.
“I’ve had a number of commissions from people who give me a few of their most treasured Christmas ornaments or toys from childhood and ask me to create a wreath around them,” she said. “In those cases, I always look for a theme or a unifying element, and then I find lots of other items to add to the mix. I like to tuck a little sentimental treasure in each art wreath if I can.”