Crafty McCrafterson

I’ve never really considered myself an artsy person… I can’t draw to save my life, and i’m pretty sure my middle school art teacher just gave me a decent grade because I was friendly and chatty (and I wasn’t quite as bad as the guys in there who couldn’t care less).  That being said… I love being crafty.  I am a novice seamstress (although that word sounds fancy… I assure you I am not) and I am addicted to my hot glue gun.  AND I have this unbelievable ability to think I can do anything, half the battle is just getting started.

So there is this store in downtown Lawrence, KS (home of my Alma Mater… Rock Chalk!) and its called Made, and its like a real life Etsy shop. Everything is home made and super cute, but I have a problem with it.  I walk in the store and think… I could make that! Don’t get me wrong… I’ve spent plenty of money in there, I mean, their stuff is super cute BUT if there is something I like that is too expensive or looks easy to make, I think I can!

I was in there with a friend a month or so ago, and she really loved a wreath they had.  It was selling for about $40 dollars, and wasn’t much more than a Styrofoam wreath covered in twine with some fabric flowers on it.  I had a ton of leftover materials from DIY Wedding things so I decided to see if I could make it for my friend!

So I stopped by Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon for the Styrafoam wreath (I think it was bout $3 for the wreath).  And I had this ball of twine like material and so I put a dot of hot glue to hold the end down and then started wrapping.  And wrapping and wrapping.  

I highly suggest doing this while watching a tv show or movie, because its a bit tedious.  It took me maybe 30 minutes to wrap the whole thing. I wasn’t too careful about wrapping exactly even because I liked the disheveled look of the criss-crosses.  

I knew I had seen a post on Bower Power about how to do fabric flowers. So I brought that back up and watched her tutorial.  I mostly had leftover ribbon, which looks a little different than the fabric, but the different textures added some variety.

So one by one I twisted the little flowers and hot glued them on (I used hot glue, which the tutorial linked above doesn’t, but I felt like it kept my flowers in the shape I wanted) 

After hot gluing each individual flower, I put a layer of hot glue and stuck it onto the wreath.

The important trick that finally helped me understand how to make the flowers was to twist the ribbon AWAY from the knot in the center.  You can see below (sorry for the fuzzy picture, but I think you get it…) You tie a knot at the end, then just twist the ribbon away from the flower and continue until it is the size you want it to be.  Whenever mine was starting to get a bit unwieldy i’d just add a dot of hot glue to the back and keep going.  However… be careful not to burn your fingers.  Also BTW… if you bought your hot glue gun at Home Depot instead of a craft store it is 10x (scientific number) more likely to burn your fingers. And smoke. THAT SUCKER IS HOT.  Keep doing this until you have all the flowers you want for your wreath.  For the final step I looped a piece of blue and white polka dotted ribbon and hot glued it at the top so the wreath would have something to hang from.  

The bottom flower in the picture above turned out really cool and is made from some ribbon that comes already bunched up… I love the added frilly-ness that it added. 

And there is the final product! It cost me approximately $3 and a few of the materials I had on hand, but it would be a great way to use up extra fabric scraps or extra ribbon you had lying around the house!

I’m going to be making one for my front door very soon!