Universal Wreath {guest post} {tutorial}

Hi everyone!  I’m so excited to be posting here at SYTYC!  My name is Megan from The Crafty Conundrum. I blog about crafts and food.  Join me each week for Foodie Friday, where I share recipes I have tried.

I’m thrilled to be able to share my interchangeable wreath with you today.  My mother-in-law loves Remembrance Day (that’s Veteran’s Day in the USA) but doesn’t have any decorations for it… so I thought I’d make her a wreath with some poppies on it.  But, since she has SOOOOO many decorations for Christmas and Halloween I thought I’d make this wreath so I can switch out the poppies for stuff that would work for other seasons as well.  One wreath for many seasons = less storage space!

So, let’s get started, shall we?

I bought this straw wreath at Michael’s.  You could also use the styrofoam wreath forms, but frankly, this one was cheaper when I was shopping, so there you go.

First wrap it all around in plastic wrap.

Then start wrapping it with yarn.  I chose white because I figured it could go with any color scheme I wanted.  I just bought a super value skein of yarn, but I would actually recommend using a thicker yarn (that means less wrapping -I learned the hard way).

I found it easier sometimes to wrap it around a bunch of times and then go back and adjust the tightness of the yarn and scoot them all CLOSE together.

You can always go back and squish them a bit closer together using your fingers/fingernails.  You want to make sure there are no spaces where you can see through to the straw.

And… skip ahead (a LOT – this is way more time consuming than I thought!).  Tuck the end in tight.  If you are nervous about it coming undone you can put a dab of glue to hold it in place.

For the poppies, I traced 4 circles out of red felt.  I used the rim of a large mug to trace.

Then you need one circle that is smaller, for the backing.

Take one large circle and fold it in half.

And in half again (the other way).

Use your glue gun to hold it together.

Repeat with the other 3 circles.  I made 3 poppies.

Then cut out a small circle out of black (or dark gray) felt.

Glue one black circle in the center of each poppy.

Because I wanted to be able to change out the poppies, I hot glued some velcro dots onto the wreath and the backs of my poppies.

Ok, I know… technically they are SQUARES not DOTS but that’s all I could find….

I also made some pink, red and white roses to put on it for Valentine’s Day.  I cut the same size circles that I used for the poppies, then cut them into spirals.

Then, starting with the outside end, roll it around itself -while gluing it to keep it in place.

Just keep rolling, gluing, rolling, gluing, rolling….

And glue the end to the bottom of the rose.

Ta-da!

Then I glued all the roses onto a strip of white felt (cut to fit the shape of the wreath where the 3 velcro squares were).

Then I glued velcro to the back of that piece (make sure to get the velcro spaced the same as on the wreath…)

Excuse the arm… I didn’t have a wreath hanger for it…