Everyday Wreath Tutorial

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on my blog! And it makes me happy to be posting once again! 🙂

So I’ve been meaning to make an everyday wreath that I can hang on my front door when I don’t have any festive/seasonal wreaths or decorations to use.  I scoured Pinterest and the web and compiled my favorite looks.

(I’m still working on creating the perfect bow! -the one in the picture is a little small for the size of the wreath, I think.- Any tips, easy instructions, or suggestions on how to create a bow from ribbon would be great!)

WHAT YOU NEED:

-18″ Grapevine wreath
-Flowers of your choice (some small, some large)
-Hot glue gun
-Ribbon (that complements your flowers-or burlap ribbon!)

The hardest part, I think, is deciding on how you want to place your flowers.  I just threaded some of the stems through the wreath’s vines to see how placement would look for the different flowers I had. You just have to play with it until you like the look.

 I’m a stickler for not seeing any stems or hot glue marks, so my flowers are close together.

You can cut the stems short (about 2-4 inches) so it is easier to thread into the wreath’s vines.  Once you have a few placed in the wreath, go ahead and hot glue them in place. Then gradually add more- messing with the placement until you like it and then hot glue those in place.

Don’t forget you can also dab some glue on a leaf or side of a flower and stick it to another flower to help hide the stems/glue marks.

I liked the look of only covering a quarter of the wreath with the flowers and having a bow offset the other side.  (Again, any helpful hints on how to make bows would be great!)

You can even add a small wooden letter for your last name near the flowers or bows to add more personalization!

Then just hook on a wreath door holder and you are all set!

*I will update a picture once I’ve created a better looking bow!

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Easter Egg Garland Tutorial

Keeping in theme with Spring and Easter, I found another Pinterest project on my list to do. The original pin is from here.

It is called Easter egg garland. But you can also just use it as decoration on a table or in a centerpiece bowl.

WHAT YOU NEED:
-1 bottle liquid starch (I used Sta-Flo, found at Walmart for $2.67)
-Embroidery floss, 1 per egg (I did 6 to start with)
-Flour
-Water balloons (filled with air!)

So first blow up the water balloons. Each one will be used as “the egg,” so if you are making 6 eggs, you need 6 balloons. Little did I know, water balloons come in different sizes, and apparently I grabbed the larger size. Just adjust the amount of air in the balloon until you get the size/shape of the egg you want. You can even sorta “mold” the balloon to give it more defined egg features.

Next, mix up the starch solution. You should mix 1 cup liquid starch with 1/2 cup flour. The original instructions said to blend it all together in a blender, but my blender is broken, so i just used a spoon to mix it well in a bowl. It might be a little clumpy, but that’s okay.

Now, you need to unravel your string. This step is SUPER important; if you don’t, you will end up with knotted string that is unusable. After you have it completely unraveled, circle it into the starch solution and then submerge it with a spoon.

After the all the string is covered in solution, grab one end of the string and start wrapping it around a balloon. You can do any pattern you want! Just make sure the string is taught, and not loose. (I think that was my problem on 3 of my eggs )
When the string runs out, place the balloon on some newspaper or a plastic bag to dry. Repeat the process for the remainder of your balloons. It will take 12-24 hours to dry. I rotated my balloons halfway through the drying process because I noticed the top half was dry but the bottom half was still damp. I think that rotation sped the process along.

After they are dry, pop the balloon, and take it out with tweezers. You may notice a white residue on the string. Take a needle or safety pin to rub off the residue. From far away it is unnoticeable.

As you can see, 3 of my eggs came out “lumpy” 😦 I think it’s because I didn’t have the string taught enough. Also, I think it would be beneficial to wipe the excess solution off with your fingertips as you are wrapping the string around the balloon. You know, just slide the string between your fingertips to get off the extra solution. The good news is that the other side of the lumpy eggs were perfect, so if you postion them carefully, you don’t even see the lumps! Problem solved! 😉

I hope this project turns out well for you! 🙂

Easter Egg Wreath Tutorial

Lately I’ve been into making wreaths for different holidays. I made an ornament wreath for Christmas, and it was so easy and fun to make! So I decided to try to make an Easter egg wreath. I was debating on using a wire hanger, string, or foam, but noticed many egg wreath tutorials suggested a foam circle or straw wreath. I kinda just put everything I read together and took what I thought would be best. I went to Walmart to get the supplies and the straw wreath was cheaper, so I went with that!

This is a pretty easy project and only takes an hour or so. One thing I will say is be careful when you are hot glueing the eggs…I burned my finger SO BAD when a drop of hot glue landed on my finger. Because you will be holding the wreath at weird angles to glue the eggs on, the glue drips down still, and BOOM! Your finger might be in the way. And because I was holding the wreath with one hand  and glue gun in other, I had to throw the glue gun down, then grab the wreath with that hand and then quickly wipe off the hot glue that landed on the other hand. OUCHHHH! Man, that hurt, and still does…2 hours later after cold water, ice, and hydrocortizone cream! There is a blister by the way. So that is the end of my rant and warning. 😉

WHAT YOU NEED:
-1 Straw wreath
-42 Regular sized easter eggs (1 pkg at walmart)
-16 Large sized easter eggs (2 pkgs at walmart)
-1 bag of Easter grass
-Hot glue gun/glue sticks

Start glueing the eggs on the inner part of the wreath. You can mix match how you place the eggs. I did them topsy turvy-like and added the larger ones sporadically amongst the regular sized eggs.

Continue to “layer” the eggs, working from the inner area to the outer area. It is okay if the eggs leave a space or if the glue leaves a visible mark. You will be able to cover it up with the grass later.
I stopped my eggs when I was done doing the outer layer (the outermost part of the wreath). If you hold it up, you will see that the eggs cover the “edge” of the wreath so you do not need to cover the whole entire wreath with eggs. However, if you wish to do that, you will need more eggs than what I mentioned earlier.

Now you can fill in the spaces and cover up any glue marks. Take your glue gun and put a dot of glue where you want a mark or space covered up, then smoosh (yes, smoosh!) some grass on that glue dot! For the spaces, you can either stuff your glue gun down in the space, let some glue out and then use a pencil or long object to stuff the grass down or you can put dots on the eggs surrounding the space and just smoosh the grass on those. Either way, the space will be covered. I did both ways and found the 2nd method to be a lot easier. Also, after you smoosh your grass down, you may have some long pieces. Just take a scissor and cut the excess off, or even trim the grass if it is out of control!

I hope I made that as easy and informative as possible! Good luck and don’t burn yourself! 😉

Valentine’s Day is coming…

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find it hard to think of gifts to give for Valentine’s day besides the usual chocolates, stuffed animals and candy. I’d rather give a gift from the heart, but homemade Valentine’s day cards will only go so far! So, I googled “cheap and easy Valentine gifts” and something I had seen before came up in the results! It was called “52 Things I Love About You.” Those 52 things are written on a deck of playing cards and tied together to be given to your Valentine! Seeing that it was cheap, easy to make, as well as a gift from the heart, I decided to give it a go!

WHAT YOU NEED:
-1 Deck of cards
-2 One Inch “Book rings”
-1 Hole puncher
-A black Sharpie marker

First take your deck of cards (they don’t have to be new, just as long as you have a full deck) and organize them how you’d like. I separated mine by suit and then put each suit in decending order (I like things to be organized). Next take the first card and punch 2 holes (one near the top and one near the bottom) on the left hand side of the card. Make sure the hole is not too close to the edge, but also not too far in (you can look at my picture for guidance). Here comes the trickiest part of this project… You are going to use the first punched card as a guide. Take the 2nd card and place it under your “guide” card. Line the edges up and punch the 2nd card through the original punches of your guide card. You will keep doing this until you finish the whole deck. Every now and again hold up the stack of cards you have punched to make sure the holes are still aligned. If the hole is narrowing or you can’t see it at all, find out where the punches started changing and re-punch those cards (whether it be a little to the left or down…etc).

After all the cards are punched you can start writing your “52 Things.” Make this from the heart! You can go general like “I love your confidence” or you can do a specific thing, for instance, “I love that you kill all the bugs because you know I won’t touch them.” I made this for my boyfriend.  As I wrote my 52 things, I started laughing while writing some and teared up (in the good way) while writing others.   It is up to you, but the more personal you make it, the more it will mean to you and your Valentine! 🙂

You can use the 2 Jokers as “book ends” for your love deck. Put one Joker on top and label it “52 Things I Love About You!” and put the other Joker at then end and label it “Susie ❤  Bob!” or “The End” or whatever you choose!

Side Note: I searched high and low for the “book rings.” Walmart and Target didn’t have them (or at least the employees couldn’t find them). But office supply stores like Office Depot or Staples had them! They are near the paper clips. I got the colored pack to make it more fun. 😉

I hope you have fun when you make this for your Valentine!