I Made it Monday St.Patrick's Day Wreath

I Made it Monday

Join me on my ongoing quest to share tips, tricks, projects, and recipes along with just about anything else on I Made it Monday.

St.Patrick's Day Wreath

Happy Tuesday!  I know, this is I Made it Monday, and I'm posting on Tuesday. Can't I get it together? Well, sometimes life just happens, or science fair project deadlines. Something like that. 

I'm a wreath kinda girl. Seriously. I have a wreath or swag or some other type of hanging decoration for my front door for just about every holiday or event. My husband says I'm going to need another closet just to store them all. He may actually be right although it's not likely I'll make that confession to him. A girl needs her secrets. Lately I've been inspired to update my wreaths or repurpose them like I'm doing today.

A few years ago my youngest daughter had a rainbow themed birthday party. It was beautiful and turned out exactly like I had hoped. You'll have to just trust me on it. I have very few photos and the quality of those that I do have leaves much to be desired. Boy oh boy, did we have fun though. One decoration that I made was a rainbow wreath. I used a wire wreath form and just tied strips of grosgrain ribbon to the form, alternating on the inner and outer rings. Easy, peasy. It was time consuming but super easy to do. I just talked and tied. After the party the wreath stayed up for a week or so then went to hang with the other wreaths on my shelf. Fast forward to now ...

The rainbow wreath before.

This is the backside showing how the grosgrain ribbon is simply tied to the frame.

I bought a shamrock hanging decoration on sale at Joann's the other day for $5. I knew when I saw it that it was the perfect addition to my rainbow wreath to make it a great St. Patrick's Day wreath. The shamrock was getting lost in the ribbon when I put it on top so I used styrofoam to raise it a little off of the ribbon wreath and give it a touch of depth. I punched holes in double 1 inch layers of styrofoam with a paint brush and used craft wire to attach the shamrock to the stryofoam and then to the wreath. It was slightly messy (that happens when you're cutting styrofoam) but super easy since the ribbon wreath was already made.

I was so excited about this working that I forgot to take a picture of the shamrock by itself. 

I used a paint brush to make holes in the styrofoam so I could feed the craft wire through.

This image is from the backside. You can see the styrofoam between the wreath and shamrock peeking out.

I'm not sure what I'm more excited about, the repurposing or the creativity. Either way, I have a great wreath. Do you have a wreath that serves multiple purposes at your house? Be sure to share you ideas in the comments and remember, you can always follow me on Pinterest, as well as Facebook, and find my designs at Applique Time. 

Look at the sparkle! It is so bright and welcoming on my front door.

Check back next week to see my next I Made it Monday post. I'm going to sew simple throw pillows for the couch with just a few straight lines.

Regards,

Bridgette 

I Made it Monday Paper Mesh Sunflower Wreath

I Made it Monday

This week I'm introducing a new plan to kick start my blog and hopefully get me back to posting. Every week on Monday I will try to post something that I made. It might be a neat craft like this week, a sewing tutorial, maybe a recipe or even just a few pics of something that I made either for myself or as a gift. It may be original or completely link to someone else's hard work. Who knows. Basically it will be something that I made. At some point. Maybe on a Monday. Maybe not. If you want to share your IMIM creations please feel free to in the comments or on my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/AppliqueTime.

Sunflower Wreath

I’ve been looking for some time to redo my spring wreath. I’ve had the same spring time wreath since 2000 and I have hung it with pride on 5 different homes since I first made it 15 years ago. The problem is it was made on a twig wreath and you know what? Birds like twig wreaths! They make great nest locations and even if they aren't building a nest there they like to use it as their own building supply store and take twigs and flowers from it. Every year I would say I was going to make something new that the birds wouldn’t like so much. I really thought after the great “bird in the house at 10:00 pm” fiasco that last year might be the year but alas, it didn’t happen. Until this year when I saw a beautiful sunflower wreath on a friends post on Facebook. I knew then that this wasn’t just a craft idea that I was going to plan to do, or worse yet, buy the supplies but never do. This one my friends was going to happen. I was going to make a sunflower wreath! So here’s what I did …

Materials

•         1 roll each of 10 inch by 10 yard decorative mesh in green and brown (I got mine at JoAnn’s. The colors there were lime green and bronze.)
•         2 rolls of 10 inch by 10 yard decorative mesh in yellow
•         Cloth Stem Wire (I could have just used pipe cleaners.)
•         Pipe Cleaners to match (Don’t worry if you don’t have the right colors. You’ll just have to spend a little more time tucking and twisting them in the final step so they don’t show.)
•         12 inch wire wreath frame (If it sounds small it is. Don’t worry. The wreath is very full and spreads out way beyond the frame.)
•         Scissors and/or rotary cutter and cutting mat
•         Ruler or straight edge

Before we get started I have to give credit where credit is due. I originally saw similar Sunflower Wreaths on Pinterest and based my entire approach off of a few videos.

The first one is here, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/190699365448392506/. I spent a lot of time looking for a wire twig work wreath like they have in the video but never could find anything that I was willing to pay for so I used a standard wire wreath with pipe cleaners as my “twigs”.

The second video is here, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/190699365448513686/. You’ll love her sweet southern accent. It made me feel like I was back home in Alabama.

There are definitely more videos and tutorials out there for similar wreaths. Look around and see what approach you are most comfortable with and what supplies you already have on hand or are readily available to you. This is a very forgiving craft and you really can’t mess it up. My approach is a combination of the two videos listed above.

Step 1. I began by adding cloth stem wires across the center of the wire wreath to create an “X” and pipe cleaners to each section of the wire wreath form. There were 3 rings and 6 sections so I added 6 pipe cleaners to each ring for a total of 18. Try to stagger them on the rings. I folded the pipe cleaner in half, slipped it over the ring then gave it one twist. You want to have as much pipe cleaner as possible available to twist around your paper mesh.

Step 2. This step is most similar to the approach for the green leaves in the second video. You will need 6 cuts of green deco mesh approximately 18 in x 10 in. It is already 10 inches wide so just aim for lengths approximately 18 inches long. I didn’t worry about being exact, just somewhere close to 18. Working with one cut piece at a time, I gave it a diagonal pull on the bias to try to get some of the curl out so I could work with it. I’m not sure if this was effective or not but she did it in the video so I did too. I then rolled diagonally opposite corners towards the center. I pinched it in the center, folded it in half, then attached it to the outer ring using the pipe cleaners working the leaf so that it would stay to the outside of wreath. Repeat for the remaining 5 pieces. Don’t worry if it won’t stay where you place it. Once the wreath is filled in more things will start to stay in place and fill in a little better.

Step 3. For the yellow petals I went with the approach from the first video. I cut 24 10 inch by 10 inch squares of yellow deco mesh. Taking one, I gathered and essentially pleated it from one corner to the other on a diagonal. I then did this again on a second cut of yellow then attached them to the wreath using the pipe cleaner. First I filled in the row with the leaves using the excess pipe cleaner from the leaves to attach the petals directly on top of the leaves then I did the same 2 to 1 approach on the middle ring.

  

Step 4. For the inside of the flower (the seed part) I used the approach in the first video. Starting with the end of the brown (don’t cut it yet) I gathered it and attached it to the pipe cleaners leaving the tail to be gathered and attached again. I poofed it a little (is poofed a word?) then attached it to the opposite pipe cleaner and kind of worked my way around the inner ring poofing and securing. This is where the “X” that you put in the middle of the wreath comes in handy. You can poof and twist and anchor to it too if needed. When I was satisfied with the poofiness (again, is that a word?) I cut the end and secured it to the back.

Step 5. Next for me was just clean up. Some of the wreaths that I saw had tails for stalks or extra leaves going down but I didn’t want any of that. Just the sunflower was good for me. I fluffed and pulled and adjusted where needed and tucked all of the extra pipe cleaner to the back.

Step 6. Hang your wreath. For once I kind of liked having a yucky brown front door because it contrasts nice with my sunflower wreath. Never mind that the door could use another coat of paint or that the door handle is actually just a door knob. I have a pretty wreath and that is all that matters now anyway.

A "Newer" Wreath

Is it December already?  Did I really post only once in November?  Oops!  That wasn't what I had in mind. Nevertheless, December is upon us now and if you haven't already started decorating for Christmas well ... let's just say I'm not going to judge you.  Last year just decorating the tree seemed like a chore and we didn't get it finished until the 11th of December.  This year is different and somehow (maybe it's the fact that all of the kids are in school now) we seem to be on top of things.  So much so that when my middle daughter brought me the wreath to "fluff" yet again I decided I was going to do something new with it.  You see, this wreath, and all of its trimmings, has been in the family for 12 years now.  Each year my husband unpacks it from the buckets of decorations and lovingly calls to me to give it a little TLC before hanging it on the door.  Some years I even take everything off and completely "redo" it.  Well, not this year!  I took a few minutes (read hours) of my evening Saturday and perused Pinterest for new wreath ideas and decided to add our surname initial to it.  The problem was I didn't have a 12 inch "W" lying around so off to the craft store I went.  Here are the details of how this came together and a before picture ...

Supplies:

a wreath (like I said, this one has been around a while)

sheet of Styrofoam (I purchased mine at Joann's.  It was about an inch thick and probably 11x14)

marker

knife

newspaper

30 gauge wire (or whatever you have around the house as long as it isn't too thick)

glitter (I bought an 8oz bottle and almost used 1/4 of it)

spray paint the same color as the glitter

clear drying school glue (I used almost 2 4oz bottles)

a paint brush (the wider the better)

a bowl to pour the glue into

ribbon or something to hang the wreath

I knew what I wanted my letter "W" to look like.  Being an applique person I am very familiar with lots of fonts especially the curlz font.  I really wanted something with a little whimsy but clear enough to be distinguishable from the road.  Using the marker I drew my "W" on my Styrofoam.  (Did you know Styrofoam is a brand?  Kinda like Q-tip.)  I wasn't worried about getting it perfect because it would be covered anyway.  If you're having trouble picturing your letter just head to your computer and look at a few fonts online.

Next I went outside and cut the letter out using a knife.  I found it easiest to score it first and then go back and cut through.  

I cut 4 long pieces of wire.  I wanted them long enough to wedge into the Styrofoam and have plenty of length to tie the finished letter to the wreath.  I just kinda cut the wire into the foam on each end.  Kinda like it was cutting into it but not through it.  Just wedged in there.  I guess I should have tried a little harder to get a pic of this because describing it isn't coming so easy.

After that I went outside to spray paint my "W" red.  I wanted to do this so in the event that I wasn't generous with my glitter the white wouldn't show through.  The wire did come in handy tying the letter to the volleyball net tie down.  If you look really close and are younger than 40 you might be able to see the wire "wedged" in there.  

This picture brought to you by the letter W.

After the paint dried next came the glitter.  I poured the glue into a small bowl to make it easier to use the paint brush.  I brushed some glue on then generously applied the glitter and just worked my way around a little glue and a lot of glitter at a time.  This took a while because I had to wait for sections to dry so I could turn it around to get to other spots like the sides and top.  I really had to resist the urge to move on while the glue was drying.  

I don't know if it was because I was liberal with the glitter or because of the spray paint but 1 coat of glitter was plenty.  The next morning I did apply a second layer of glue over the glitter.  I wanted the top coat to be glue not glitter and since I was using school glue that dried clear this was no problem.  (You may be able to see the wire here also as well as a complimentary viewing of the Arts section of the Washington Post.)  

After waiting most of the day for the glue to dry I was able to use the attached wire and secure my 12 inch "W" to my wreath that evening and hang it up on the front door.  I am very pleased with the appearance both up close and far away.  I have to admit, there was a time early on in the glittering that I was worried that it might look a little thrown together but once I got a nice layer of glitter on it and put it together I'm very happy with the outcome.    

How about you?  Do you have a great wreath makeover to share?