st patty's day wreath

Hey all!! Happy Friday! So this wreath combines three of my favorite things- Unity stamps, The Twinery twine, and St. Patrick's Day!! Being half Irish, it's a big holiday in our family :) After I finished the shamrocks, yarn balls, and fabric "flowers" for this wreath, I decided to make a banner and stamp on some felt! I was super excited that it worked so well!
.: materials :.

• styrofoam wreath base
• festive fabric
• yarn (for background and balls)
• felt (for shamrocks and banner)
• straight pins & 2 decorative pins
• twine (I used The Twinery's cantaloupe)
• eyelets
• eyelet setter (I use a Crop-A-Dile)
• ink (I used Stazon's timber brown)
• stamps (I used Unity's February Kit of the Month 2012)
• scissors (regular and pinking shears)

.: directions :.

WREATH BASE::

• wrap the wreath in twine

FABRIC FLOWERS::

• cut out circles from your festive fabric in varying sizes. these will be used to make the "flowers" (6-10 circles per flower)
• put a straight pin through the center of each circle, and pin into the wreath. pin the centers of the circles close to each other to create a nice full flower. continue pinning circles until you get a flower "fullness" that suits you :) most of mine are ~8 circles per flower, with some being fewer and some being more.

SHAMROCKS::

• create your felt shamrocks (I used this tutorial here)
• pin shamrocks to wreath using straight pins. I tried to hide the pins in some of the folds of felt near the center of the shamrock.

TWINE BALLS::

• create yarn balls (good tutorial here) - I use two fingers to start my yarn balls, especially since the ones on this wreath are smaller, and I change directions every ~8 loops. Once you reach your desired ball size, carefully tie off the yarn.
• pin balls to wreath with straight pins. I put the pin through a few yarn strands and then the knot where I tied off the yarn.

BANNER::

• stamp images onto felt and cut out with pinking shears (or regular scissors)
• attach eyelets to each corner of felt and connect with twine
• attach banner to wreath with decorative pins
• hang wreath and enjoy! :)

See how I used the same base and accessories to update this wreath in 2013- {see it here}! And check back here soon to see 2014's version! I love how easy it is to change up everything a bit each year :)

.: linkin up here :.

Frugalicious Friday @ Finding Fabulous

Making the World Cuter

baby wreath

Hey all!!
So sorry it's been a while! With hubby away, I've been trying to get a lot of cleaning, organizing, Master's thesis work, and baby projects done! Not to mention getting the house ready for his arrival home again- so soon!! Anyhoo, I've had a lot of projects in the works, but hadn't gotten a chance to put finishing touches on a lot of them (or just haven't photographed them yet!).



But here's a project that I recently finished, and I'm SO excited to share- one of those things that actually turned out better than I imagined it! Hehe, and that rarely happens, so I'm super psyched! So this is a wreath for a baby's nursery :)

the only materials are...

wool yarn, "styrofoam" wreath, felt, scissors, needle, threads, and pretty pins, straight bins, and hot glue (to secure the yarn ends of the "baby" word)

there were really only a few steps to this wreath...

{1} wrap the wreath

{2} wrap the "baby" word

{3} stitch together various flowers

{4} pin everything to the wreath, and hang!

There's a few fun features here too...

• all of the flowers are removable, so the wreath and yarn-wrapped "baby" can be reused for future projects or customized to different genders. The flowers on the wreath part are pinned in place. The flower on the "baby" word is attached with thread, so you can just cut the threads to remove. All flowers are one piece, so if you remove them, they won't fall apart or anything ;) You could also attach the flowers to hair clips for a fashionable baby (or mama!) accessory!
• the "baby" word is not permanently attached to the main wreath, so you can easily remove it and put it elsewhere in the nursery (ie. bookshelf, wall, etc) for added decor :)
• I got the idea for the "baby" word via Pinterest from Family Chic- I deviated from her tutorial a little, since I used a thick gauged floral wire and hot glued the ends
• the flowers are from various tutorials around the web- all are made via cutting out some felt and stitching the petals together, super simple! if you google "felt flowers" you'll find a bunch of tutes :)
• since all the flowers and word are temporarily attached, you could use the same wreath base for all sorts of occasions- switch out the word, switch out the flowers, the possibilities are endless ;)

So that about wraps up this project... hopefully I'll be back here regularly as I {finally} finish up projects and get them photographed! I have so much to share- decor projects, organizing, foodie stuff, and more!!

sharing here...