VALENTINE WELCOME WREATH

There's nothing like a good welcome wreath for your home. It makes people feel warm and fuzzy and happy that they are about to enter your home, right? That's why it was the first Valentine decoration I put up this year. Actually - making it got me excited for this holiday. Here's how I made this Valentine Welcome Wreath for my front door.

I started with my base. First of all, I knew I wanted to use this 12" x 12" piece of scrapbook paper. So I cut the largest heart I could out of that paper. Then I cut my heart out of thick cardboard - 1/2" bigger all the way around. I glued the paper to the heart. (Ignore the flowers up in the corner for now - I will show you how to make those when the base is finished)

Then I measured all the way around the whole heart and cut a piece of red felt a few inches longer than that length, by 2". It's purpose is to cover the cardboard edge to finish it pretty too.

Start by glue-gunning it at the bottom of the heart, leaving enough to hang off the edge a bit. You will need to clip it almost to the cardboard edge when you start going around the curves. More clips as the curve gets tighter. Glue it a little bit as you go, right up to the paper edge, barely overlapping it. (That's my little helper's hand. Everyone needs a little helper.)

When you're done gluing the front, it should look like this.

Turn it over and wrap those pieces around to the back and glue them down, pulling tight.

It should look like this.

Keep your curve really nice.

Now to make the pretty swirly flowers. Cut a whole bunch of circles. About 3 1/2" across. These will be all your petals. For my wreath, I cut 54.

You will need 18 stacks of 3, for each flower.

Now let's make the petals. Fold a circle in half.

Then fold it back against itself, just over halfway. This makes it a very pretty swirl.

Now go to your sewing machine. I guess you could glue-gun these together but that would be against all my natural instincts. If I can sew it, I do! Plus, sewing it keeps that fold in place. Take a scrap piece of felt (from the leftovers when you cut all those circles - dig them out of the trash!) for your flower base. Place the scrap down and stitch the point of your folded flower petal to the scrap. Be sure to backstitch.

Grab another one and fold it twice like I showed you above. Stitch it next to first petal you sewed, points touching each other. Leave a little space in between the first one and this one.

Now do the same again for the third petal, leaving a little space, but points touching. You want them to be evenly spaced.

Take it off the machine. You will repeat this 18 times - until you have all your flowers done.

Cut around the scrap base, leaving a little base circle. You will glue it here.

Now let's glue these flowers on. Put your fingers into the petals, fluffing it out a little. Hold onto it and get your glue gun ready.

Put a dab of glue on the base and glue it to the bottom of your heart. Onto the felt edging you did previously.

Then glue another to the top between the heart bumps.

The goal now is to space everything out evenly so that when you glue it you have enough room for all your flowers and there is no crowding and no gaps. I laid them all out around evenly and then glued directly next to where it was laid.

When you are finished, it should look like this.

Now grab your favorite lettering. I used stickers - you could use vinyl lettering, rub-ons, stamps, whatever you like. Apply the word WELCOME. This is what makes it front-door-ish, right?

Now turn it over and glue-gun a ribbon to the back so it can hang.

There is your pretty wreath. Good job!

I first hung it on my wall in the front entry and it looked pretty cute, but of course remembered it should go on my front door.

I needed to replace my "Winter" Snowman - he has a heart you know, and he could pass for Valentines but no, I'm tired of the snow already and he needs to go. "Bye-bye - love you - see you in ten months"

It's new home - on the front door.

Oh yeah - I added a cute heart.

Good thing I made that side edge pretty - see?

Welcome!

Happy Valentine's Day!



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ORNAMENT BALL WREATH

I remember when I first saw this Wreath - it was one of the first things I ever pinned. Well, I knew I would make it someday because I had a set of unbreakable ornament balls that I had been ready to throw out for a few years (you know those things you pull out every Christmas and are tired of looking at but can't quite get rid of?) These were those balls.


I found this tutorial on You Tube and I was psyched! I found a sturdy hanger and untwisted the top part to get started!

I did try to do a pattern because I wanted more purple balls to show (I am in love with this color right now) but it was of no use because they just kept spinning around wherever they wanted to go.

I had to make sure all the balls still had their tops to hook the hanger through. Some I glue-gunned on.

When it was full - I really could fit no more and I had hardly any left - it was like it was meant to be - I hooked the ends together and tightened it.

You couldn't see through it too bad but I wanted security for those ball tops so I glue-gunned some more (harder to do when the balls are already strung).

I wanted to fill in any gaps and because all my balls were the same size, I felt like it needed more contrast somehow. So I pulled out the 'ole wire-edged ribbon bin and started winding pieces of 2"-3" wide gold ribbon throughout the balls, randomly.

With more gold ribbon, I fashioned a bow at the top and glued it in place also. More prettiness.

I then glue-gunned the ribbon to the balls to everything would just stay where I put it. (Do you ever wish there was a craft spray like hairspray that just "fixes" things in place where you put them?)

So...what do you do with the leftover ornaments that had no tops on them? Into the sleigh for the kids to play with.

This is where I actually hung the wreath - on the back door that we do not use because it is "broken". (We had a windstorm and the screen flew backwards farther than it was supposed to go and screwed up the whole door frame - sounds like a future "fix-it" post, eh?)

The door looked lovely all season long - and it was fun to see it from the backyard too!

Have you made your version of this wreath yet?


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"POST-CHRISTMAS" Post: Please humour me...read why

OK! Recent history: My camera busted (see this sad post) right after Thanksgiving, and I begged and pleaded to the camera people out there to please help me out. I got a lovely offer from a friend to take pics for me, but - I would need you by my side constantly, Kara, whenever I had the whim to take of picture of a project I got a few minutes to sew. It would be completely unpredictable...if you know what I mean. Thank you so much for the offer though. You're a sweetheart.

But here I am and "HOW" you say? With pictures this time?

Well, the conversation on Facebook went something like this:

Friend: "Hi there! I have an old camera that I was giving away and thought of you...a Sony Cybershot (digital camera)... have memory cards...rechargeable batteries...manual and everything... Would you be interested in it?..."

Me: "ABSOLUTELY! How did you know my Sony Cybershot just died?!? I am not ready to buy a fancier camera yet so I would love to have a replacement! Thank you for thinking of me!"

Friend: "What a coincidence. I must have ESP...[I will have my husband bring it to work to your husband]. Hope you have a wonderful holiday!"

Me: "I think you DO have ESP! Thank you again..."

So, how about that. I do believe in ESP... Now, the thing is they were ALREADY on their Holiday vacation when I got this message on December 18. They got back the day AFTER my husband took off work for his vacation time. Then my husband did not go back to work until January 3, just like the kids, for school. So I did not get the camera in my hands until this week. And I spent several days figuring it out and snapping like 400 pictures, I swear.

So NOW I am ready to post some Christmas stuff! Yes, it did occur to me to wait until next year, already! but I have been SO excited to share and SO bummed that I could NOT share. So...even though the rest of you have already put away every Christmas thing and even thoughts of Christmas AND New Year's are done - please humour me and bear with me while I get this out of my system. Just "pin it" for next year, right?

Anyway, moving onward! Here are a few of the most fun things I did this Christmas:

ORNAMENT BALL WREATH

(links coming soon)


FAMILY CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS


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