The last couple of weeks have been so busy and productive. I've not been distracted at all, but not getting much done in the way of crafting either. I have a spring cleaning bug and my house is being decluttered and cleaned floor to ceiling and wall to wall. When I took a few minutes to sit and craft for a while, I was shocked to see that it's been two weeks since I posted.
I thought I would share this wreath that I made last October. Wish I had a picture of it without the spring decor but I can share one later in the year when I switch out the theme. So far this wreath has served as a fall and Christmas decoration and now it makes my front door bright with spring colors. I’ve been changing out the embellishments on the wreath seasonally with themed wired garland I pick up at Michaels.
The original design came from an older post at Tater Tots and Jello. I altered the plan a little by using a 12" straw wreath and wrapping it in muslin. All the flowers are cut from pages of a dictionary using three different sized flower dies. After running the dies and paper through the Cuttlebug, (I used about 200 pages from a pocket dictionary), I spritzed them with water and then lightly sprayed on some Glimmer Mist and then crumpled them up. Next I opened them and let them lay flat to dry, (the thin paper dried really fast). Once dry, I began hot gluing the flowers to the wreath alternating between the sizes. This was all done very randomly with no real plan or design. The original blog post suggested wrapping the flowers around the eraser end of a pencil before putting on the hot glue. This made the whole project a breeze. I just wrapped, glued, and stuck the flower down. Once it was stuck to the wreath I just pulled out the pencil and went on to the next flower. I was so pleased with how it looked. Even undecorated it was beautiful.
Learn from my mistake though. Put some type of hanger on the back before starting to glue on the flowers. I made a loop from a piece of florist wire that I wrapped around the wreath after I put on the flowers. It would have been much easier to do this before instead of later. Another tip, don't use this as an outdoor wreath. It probably won't hold up to the weather. I hang mine on the inside of my front door. I'm thinking of making a smaller one to hang above my foyer table.
Don't be turned off by the number of flowers I glued or the spritzing and drying. All together I think it took me only a couple of hours to make this wreath and I spent only a few dollars. I used a dictionary I bought on the dollar table at the local bookstore, the straw wreath was just a couple of dollars from Michaels and I got the muslin from my friend Cheryl, over at Cheryl's Window. She's a sewer and had some leftover from a project. (Friends are great resources for small quantities of a product that you might not have on hand. Just remember to pay it forward or back in kind).
Susan
This is pretty, I never thought to do that! Although mine is TOO christmas looking.
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