January 12, 2012

A Winter Wreath

As Christmas passes and the holiday decorations come down, my heart is always a little sad to say goodbye. When we were in Lincoln, my mom offered me an old, dusty moss/dried flower covered wreath hoping that I could reuse the base wreath. On our way back to Minnesota I came up with a grand plan for the sad wreath: a winter wreath (especially since my only other options are a Christmas wreath and a wreath that my mom made from our wedding corsages which looks a little too much like summer/fall).

What I brought back with us looked like this:


 We pulled off most of the dried flowers, but some hot glue and moss remained. 


The supplies: a wreath form, a bundle of sticks, some white (Christmas) beads I found on sale for $0.39 at Michaels, my trusty hot glue gun, and blue ribbon that is not in the picture. 


 I found the bundle of sticks at Target on clearance for $2.98 (normally priced at $9.99).  I decided to go with store bought sticks (instead of trying to find my own from outside) not only because they were on clearance, but also because I figure that the relative uniformity would help in the overall look and because I have recently experienced a spell of really bad allergies and the last thing I need is to bring more allergens into our house.


I began by breaking the long sticks up into smaller pieces, about as long as the wreath's diameter.



After I had all of the sticks broken up, I took little bundles of 7 or 8 sticks and hot glued the group about 1/4 of the way in on one side of the bundle.

I then flipped the bundle over and attached it to the wreath, holding it in place.  As I moved around the wreath, I was careful not to be too picky about parts of the wreath showing through. I wanted to solidify the pattern and angle of the sticks and if I messed with the bundles too much or tried to add too many sticks at one time, things would start to fall off.


When I finished gluing completely around the wreath, I had a good number of sticks left over which I used to then fill in the gaps and make the wreath look fuller. I also was much more meticulous in how I glued the sticks on because I wanted to try and cover up the hot glue that showed through. (The part in the lower right corner with hot glue showing is where I decided to place the bow and white beads, which was convenient because I was tired of trying to convince the hot glue to cooperate at that point).


With the wreath finished, I then glued on the white beads and began making a bow. I wanted a fuller bow than a simple tied bow, so I folded the ribbon back and forth making 3 loops on either side. Every time I would loop the ribbon, I made sure that the length was always the same (otherwise the bow would have ended up looking less full and more funny).


Once I had my 3 loops, I wired the bow together in the middle and cut the end. 

 
I then created a middle tie by using a small piece of the ribbon, folding it in thirds, and then I wrapped it around the center and glued it in place. 


The finished bow:

*also, this is the closest I could get to the actual blue of the ribbon... different lights affect coloring differently  

Put it all together, and you have a wonderful winter (but not Christmas) wreath!


 A close-up of the bow/bead detail:


The wreath in its proper place:


We previously had stockings hanging beneath the Christmas wreath, so now we have little mittens hanging there instead. My mother-in-law gave them to me. Aren't they cute?

 
It was fun to create a little pizzazz for winter. The total out of pocket cost of the wreath ended up being less than $3.50!

1 comment:

  1. Hello, me again, you both are quite creative. I'm happy to see the wreaths, they'll always be in style. I lived in the country and packed everything up just about every weekend. I would just take a walk and there was so much wild grape vine. I think i still have a few....this was about 25 yrs ago. haaa

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