Two DIY Wreaths

Since Richmond decided to go straight from fall to summer, I lost some of my motivation to work on wintery things.  Though there are only five days left of winter and my Winter Inspiration list is mostly undone, this weekend I felt motivated to finish a project that's been in my head for a while!

Bonnie found many bauble Christmas wreaths on Pinterest and tackled one of her own back in late fall, which is when normal people make Christmas wreaths.  I am not one of those people.  I bought all the supplies needed, and put them in the basket in our study to sit for 3 months.  My, how Kristen of me.

Equally Kristen was the random day I selected to finish start this project - last Friday night.  It was my last Friday of freedom until May, since spring break is now over, and I wanted to feel like I seized it.  Most people my age might have gone to a club or on a date with their spouses, but not me.  Craft night it is!

Enough babbling, let's talk baubles <-see what I did there?  No?  OK, moving on.

Here's what you'll need:

• wire hanger: free from Bonnie!
• 3 yards ribbon (optional): $2.99 - 40% Michael's coupon = $1.79
• needle-nose pliers
• ~75 miniature baubles in your favorite color(s): $5.25
• I bought mine at the Dollar Store in tubes of 15
• Total cost:  $7.04

I'd post a link to a tutorial or something, but this is pretty intuitive:

• use the plyers to unwrap the ends of the wire hanger
• shape the hanger into a circle
• slide the ornaments (in a specific order by color, or at random, depending on your level of OCD) onto the non-handle end of the hanger
• repeat this ~75 times

• use the pliers to re-wrap the ends of the wire

• fill in the blank spaces by moving the ornaments around - you might not have this problem if you don't have any fabric on the hanger
• tie your ribbon around the curved part of the hanger
• DONE! :)

Cool, right?

Since this project had been nagging at me, staring at me from the study every day when I come home from work, I couldn't fully close the proverbial Christmas box.  Now I'm over Christmas and this 80 degree weather is making me crave summer!  So I made a summer wreath too :)

Guess where I got the idea?  Yep.  Pinterest:

Source: cfabbridesigns.com via Kristen on Pinterest

I collected my supplies:

•  styrofoam wreath form: $7.99 - 40% Hobby Lobby coupon = $4.79
• 1/2 yard of fabric: $1.49
• cocktail umbrellas: $5.99 for 144 picks, but I only used about 25 so I could have bought a way smaller pack
• straight pins and scissors
• Total cost: $12.27

 I started by cutting my fabric into strips, about 3 inches wide.  Check out my mad straight cutting skilz:

Then I pinned the first strip to the wreath and wrapped it around and around...

...layering additional pieces of fabric until the wreath was completely covered:

Then I added the cocktail umbrellas.  I added them in random locations, trying to alternate the colors to make it even.  Once they were all in position, I raised the umbrellas:

Here we go!

Can't wait to put this outside for the summer!

Oh, I know what you're thinking:  "Hey stupid, that's not going to last long outside!  What if it rains?"  I only know that's what you're thinking because that's the first thing Dave said, but the stupid part was only implied.  Since our front door is under an overhang, the only time the top part of the door gets wet is when we have sideways rain, which is rare.  So other than the paper deteriorating from heat or humidity, this oughta last me at least a few, fun weeks, right?  We'll see :)