father's day wreath

 I'm excited for Father's Day this year.
{June 19th!}
It's Travis' first, so it's pretty special. 

In the spirit of Father's Day, I put together this wreath with a few of my grandfather's ties, as well as some antique linen that belonged to my great-grandmother for the flowers. 

Every time I look at it, a fond memory of my grandpa comes to mind.   

He is missed.

I love the manliness of the ties, paired with the feminine linen flowers.  

A happy balance.

I think I'll keep it up through the 4th of July.
It is patriotic in color, after all. 

another wreath, another cut-out

Last night after Travis went to bed and while our little guy was taking a snooze, I finished up this wreath that I've had sitting around half-done for several weeks.  I finished wrapping the yarn and added the embellishments.  I used a little bit of burlap, some white felt, a piece of ribbon left over from my Christmas countdown, and a large wooden button.  I also added three dried flowers left over from this project.  I think it turned out really cute.  What do you think?!

I also worked on another cut-out last night.  

Have you been crafting lately?  What have you been making?

a wreath, repurposed

Earlier this year I picked up a wreath from Pottery Barn (online).  I loved the image of it on the website, and it was a heck of a deal at $20.  However, when it arrived in the mail, I was slightly disappointed because it wasn't nearly as full as the online image showed.  I still liked it, but instead of finding it a place to hang "front and center" in the house (as I had planned), I placed it in a location where it was less likely to be noticed by visitors.

After moving the wreath half way across the country, it is now less full than when it originally arrived at my front door in Fresno.  I thought I had packed it quite carefully, but with so many hands involved in loading and unloading the truck, my "fragile" and "this side up" notes got blatantly ignored.  I literally cringed when I watched the box get tossed of the truck and carried sideways into the condo.  Oh well.  So a less-than-full, slightly man-handled wreath is what brought me to this re-purposing project. 

I picked up a grapevine wreath last week at Hobby Lobby for $3.00.  The Pottery Barn wreath has some great adornments that I clipped off to attach to the new one.  Easy project - whole new look.  No more sad looking, sparse wreath. 

Pottery Barn wreath

bare spots in the wreath - not so attractive

$3.00 grapevine wreath

flowers clipped from the old wreath and attached to the new one

now the wreath hangs in a well noticed place, over our bed, for the Christmas season

I'm so much happier with the way the new wreath looks.  A plus?  I have left over flowers and pine cones for another project. 

yarn wreath no. 2 + felt flower "how-to"

When I picked up the materials that I needed to make this yarn wreath, I also picked up a smaller wreath and enough yarn and felt to make a second.  Yes, that's how much I love them.  Plus, I wanted to make one that has a bit more color for spring/summer time.  This wreath was less expensive - which I like.  The 14" wreath cost me $3.47, the yarn was $3.69, and the felt was $1.50.  A total of $8.66 for this one.

A friend of mine commented on how much she loved these yarn wreaths and wanted to know how to make the felt flowers.  Instead of just telling her how to make them, I thought I'd "show" her (and anyone else who might be interested), right here on the blog.  I did just "wing it" when making these - there's probably another way to make them, but this is what worked for me.  Here's what you'll need:

glue gun, scissors, felt circles

For the felt circles, I cut a bunch of each of these sizes: 1 1/4", 1 3/4", and 2 1/4".  (All eyeballed - none of them are perfect.)  For my flowers (the bigger ones), I used 3 of the smallest size, 2-3 of the medium, and anywhere from 2-4 of the largest, depending on the size I wanted the finished flower to be.  You'll figure out how many work for you as you go along. 

I start out by cutting each of the felt circles that I'll be using in half.  I run a line of glue along the cut edge and then wrap it around itself.  Like so:

one small "petal" starts the flower

Adding the rest of the smallest circle halves, I get to this point:

Now, for the mid-sized and largest circle halves, I have to trim a bit off otherwise the petals are too deep and they tend to look a bit "over-grown", looking silly against the smaller "petals".

trim about this much

mid sized "petals" glued on

largest "petals" added - finished flower

So that's how the felt flowers are made, at least according to me.  If you know of or come up with different (easier) method, let me know.  Happy flower making!

yarn wreaths

I love finding inspiration and ideas for new projects.  Inspiration can come from a catalog or magazine, a store display, browsing blogs on the internet...just about anywhere.  I came across these yarn wreaths months ago on etsy.com.  While they caught my eye, I simply tucked the project away to access at a later time.  Between a new baby on the way and moving half way across the country, lots of fun little projects got put on hold while priorities took center stage.  Now that baby is almost here and we're all settled in our new place, I have some time on my hands while we wait for the most special delivery we've ever looked forward to.  I decided to pull this project out of "storage" and actually make it happen.

I  pulled the following images from this etsy shop to get my creative juices flowing. I'm in love with the texture and imperfection of the wrapped yarn.  These wreaths are, to me, absolutely beautiful.   

LOVE the color combination of this one

And I found this yarn wrapped frame on this blog - I love the contrast of texture against the smooth, flat wall. 

So, after I did a bit of research and brainstorming on the best way (and least expensive) way to go about this project, I headed over to Hobby Lobby to pick up the materials. 

straw wreath

wreath wrapped in batting - to add a little "cush"

lots of yarn

lots of felt circles for the flowers

finished product

So, for my yarn wreath project, here's the breakdown of what I spent:

18" straw wreath: $3.99
batting: already owned
yarn: $15.58 (I thought one roll of yarn would be enough for cover the wreath, but I ended up short, so I had to buy another...not ideal, but it is what it is.)
felt for flowers (6 sheets at 4/$1): $1.50
________________________________
total of $21.07

That's a bit more than I was hoping to spend (since I had to, unexpectedly, buy two rolls of yarn), although not too shabby when you consider the owner of the etsy shop mentioned at the beginning of this post charges $65 for a 16" wreath! (plus $12 for shipping)

What do you think?  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.   It has such a cozy feeling - and that's a great feeling to spread around the house during these upcoming chilly months.

Feeling inspired?