Easiest Fall Monogram Wreath Tutorial

Fall is absolutely, without a doubt, my favorite season.  On September 1st, I pulled out all of my fall decorations and spent the morning transforming my home.  (That was also the day my son started school, and I had to keep busy to keep from crying the entire day!)  Today the weather has cooled enough to make it feel like fall--What perfect timing, as I made a new fall wreath for our front door last night!  

SUPPLIES
Styrofoam wreath form (mine was 10")
Fall Ribbon--Enough to wrap the entire wreath and cover the door hanger
1 Strand/Garland of fall leaves (On sale now at JoAnn's!)
Floral Pins (Sewing pins would work fine, too.)
Door/Wreath Hanger

Wrap the fall-themed ribbon around the entire wreath, covering it completely.  I used floral pins to secure the ribbon, as I like to be able to change my wreaths around, but you could use a glue gun, instead.

Create a loop at the top of your wreath with one end of your leaf garland.  Secure it with a pin.

Continuing from where you started the garland with the loop, wrap the garland in and out of the wreath, until you've used the entire length.  (Sorry if this isn't too clear; just wrap it around, the same way you did the ribbon.)  Secure the end with another pin.  

You can see the pin that I used to secure the end of the ribbon in the first step.  Don't worry about those pins because you can arrange the leaves to cover anything that shows.

Wrap your door hanger in ribbon, too, if you like.  I used double sided tape to secure the ribbon.

This is what I first hung on my door.  I really liked it, but felt like it needed something else.  So I scrounged around my craft room and found a letter "D" that I had mod podged a few months ago, but never did anything with.  Luckily it fit perfectly inside my wreath, and matched!

Here's the final product!  I love the monogram in the middle; I feel like it really makes the wreath.  How easy was that?!

HAPPY FALL!

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Spring Wreath Tutorial

I searched high and low for a spring wreath to hang on my front door.  I searched craft blogs and stores, but found nothing that I loved.  (I really have to love it if it's going to be on my front door.)  After a very successful Goodwill trip on Saturday, though, I at least had something to work with. Here's what I did:

Materials:

Twig Wreath Form (Mine was in the shape of three hearts)

Silk Flowers (Number will depend on your base--I used about 30)

Miniature Rose Blooms--2 colors (Again the number will depend on the size of your wreath)

Small Half-Pearl Beads (One for each silk flower)

Ribbon (About as thick as the outside width of your wreath)

Twine

Glue Gun

Step 1: Keep kids busy

Wreath Base (69 cents at Goodwill)

Step 2: Using your glue gun, cover the outside of the wreath with ribbon.

Step 3: Hot glue the silk blossoms to the front of the wreath.  My wreath base had small sticks, equally spaced, around the wreath.  I glued one blossom to the top of each of those sticks.  At the center of each heart, I used a large bright pink blossom, instead of the small yellow ones that I used around the rest of the heart.

Step 4: Ask your kids what you should do next.

Step 5: Follow their advice.  Glue a half-pearl to the center of each blossom.  ("What about jewels?")  I used a larger pearl for each of the large pink flowers.

Step 6: Cut miniature roses from their stems.  I cut them right at the base of the bloom.

Step 7: Cover the bottom of each rose with hot glue.  Then place it into your wreath, holding it in place for about 10 seconds to be sure the glue will hold.  Please just trust me on this.  I tried a gazillion ways of getting the roses to stay in place in the wreath.  Don't put the glue on the wreath and then the flower on the glue.  It won't work.  I promise.  Just use a lot of glue on the bottom of your flower and you'll be fine.

Step 8: Completely stuff the wreath with roses.  Seriously pack them in.  When they dry, they'll shrink.  I know you don't want holes in your wreath!

Step 9: Tie two twine handles, one along the front of the top of the wreath, and one towards the back of the top of the wreath.  If you only use one piece of twine to hang the wreath, it will tip forward or backward.  Again, just trust me.

Step 10: Twist the front twine handle with the back twine handle.

Now hang your wreath!  You did it!

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