Cupshe

How To Make 1 Wreath for Every Season and Holiday

A little fun fact about me: I love to craft.  By no means am I at a Martha Stewart level, but I’d like to think that I am decent at coming up with crafting ideas and following through.  Don’t get me wrong I have had plenty of Pinterest and non Pinterest fails, I have spent more in correcting mistakes, and made more trips to Hobby Lobby than planned, but it’s the project “wins” that keep me coming back for more!  I even have a “craft room” in my house that I convinced my husband that I needed only to do all my crafts not in said craft room, but on the dining room table.  I can’t tell you the amount of times we eat in bed or in the living room  because I have craft materials all over the table where we are actually supposed to be eating.

When we first moved into our house about 3 years ago I swore I would be one of “those ladies” who always decorated for every season and holiday.  Come to find out that takes a lot of money and it takes a build up and accumulation of things (and buying half-price during the off-season) to achieve that.  So I switched it up and made a more attainable goal which is to have a festive wreath on the door for every season.  I thought it would be an even better idea to have 1 wreath and just change that one for every holiday, and so, my 1 Wreath for Every Season and Holiday was born!  By creating velcro panels you can just attach and detach the panel however, whenever you want!  This weekend I had my patriotic panel up in remembrance of September 11th.  This morning I slapped the Texans panel on because football season has begun.  When I feel that first gust of fall breeze, down goes the Texans and up goes my “harvest” panel!

Full disclosure:  This project is kind of labor intensive. There is a bit of prep work before you can put it all together, but it’s totally worth it because you are pretty much getting 6-10 wreaths all in one.  So go for it!  You will be glad you did!

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Materials

  • Wreath
  • Wooden Letter (I chose my last name initial)
  • 1/2 yrd. fabric- for the holiday or season (quilting square bundles are great for this)
  • 1/2 yrd. fabric- accents your holiday fabric (again…quilting squares will work)
  • 1 yrd. felt (will be the backing of your other fabric pieces.  I chose grey because grey is the dominate color of my home decor)
  • Glue gun+ glue sticks
  • Decorative ribbon
  • Velcro
  • 1 foam sheet
  • Paint (to paint your wooden letter, I chose gold spray paint)
  • Fabric glue
  • Wire+ wire cutter
  • Twine
  • Needle+ thread
  • Wreath hanger

Like I said…seems like a lot, but trust me girl, it’s going to look fab! Let’s start with the prep work, shall we?

Bertuzzi-Photography-002 (3)Paint that letter.

Bertuzzi-Photography-004 (2)Measure the width of your wreath where you will have your decorative panel.

Bertuzzi-Photography-005 (2)Cut your foam the correct width (mine was 4 in.) and round the foam so that there are no hard edges.

Bertuzzi-Photography-006 (4)You will want to make several because these will be the foundation for which you create all your panels.  One foam sheet made 4 for my wreath.

Bertuzzi-Photography-027 (1)Cut the soft part of the velcro to fit the back side (the side that will attach to the wreath) of your foam piece.  Now, you are more than welcome to use velcro with adhesive on it.  I think that it’s a great idea!  I ran into the problem, and had to run back to Hobby Lobby because in the Texas heat, the adhesive wouldn’t stay secure.  Remember that your wreath needs to be somewhat all-weather, so you have to take the elements in consideration.  That being said, I got the regular velcro and secured it on my foam by sewing it.  Yep, I sewed it right through the foam.  You don’t have to be an expert seamstress, just know how to thread a needle, make and “x” and knot!  That will definitely keep it in place!

Bertuzzi-Photography-026 (1)This is what the front will look like after you sew.  UGLY, but it doesn’t matter, you are about to cover it up with pretty things!

Bertuzzi-Photography-007 (3)Wire time!  The design you are making is essentially going to look like flower pedals so this wire will be used to make little stamen (yes I had to look that word up.  It’s the little thingy that sticks out of a flower where the pollen is).  I snagged this wire from the floral department.

Bertuzzi-Photography-008 (4)Cut your pieces about 3 inches with your wire cutter.

Bertuzzi-Photography-011 (3)Glue the tip of the wire.

Bertuzzi-Photography-012 (3)Wrap the twine around the top of the wire where your glue is.

Bertuzzi-Photography-013 (3)And continue wrapping the twine around the “head of the wire to create a little bulb (like a q-tip).

Bertuzzi-Photography-014 (4)

Bertuzzi-Photography-016 (3)Glue the rest of the wire and wrap one layer of the twine around the remainder.

Bertuzzi-Photography-018 (2)

Bertuzzi-Photography-019 (4)I usually use about 3-4 of these per panel so make as many as you think you will need based on the amount of panels you will make.

Bertuzzi-Photography-009 (4)Now you want to make two pedal shaped patterns.  Same shape two different sizes.  The big one will be for the felt backing and the smaller will be for your festive fabric.

Bertuzzi-Photography-020 (2)

Bertuzzi-Photography-021 (2)While you’ve got your felt, go ahead and cut out some leaves in that same fabric.  These will be used to fill in the spaces in the end.  I kind of just eye-balled the shape.  Make several!  I used 3-5 for each panel.

Bertuzzi-Photography-022 (4)Each panel will call for about 10 pedals.  You can use as many different decorative fabrics as you’d like.  For my Texans panel I went with the Texans fabric and a polka dots.  So I cut out 5 texans fabric pedals, 5 polka dot pedals, and 10 grey felt big pedals.

Bertuzzi-Photography-023 (3)Here is what you prepped so far!  You are doing awesome!  Like…80% done!

Bertuzzi-Photography-024 (3)

Bertuzzi-Photography-025 (2)Glue the decorative fabric to the felt with the fabric glue.

Bertuzzi-Photography-029 (3)Glue a short line of  glue at the bottom of each pedal and fold.

Bertuzzi-Photography-030 (1)

Bertuzzi-Photography-031 (2)Now it’s really coming together!  Do you see the pedals now?!

Bertuzzi-Photography-032 (1)Place your pedals on top of your foam panel so that you can get a good idea of placement before you glue. Alternate your pedals based on the fabric.  If you see white spaces from the foam, don’t worry about it.  We are going to fill all that in!

Bertuzzi-Photography-033 (2)Once you figured out your placement, glue the pedals on to your foam panel.

Bertuzzi-Photography-035 (1)Put a little glue on the back of each pedal and adhere the pedal next to it.

Bertuzzi-Photography-036 (1)

Bertuzzi-Photography-037Now it’s time to add our decorate flair!  You can probably see some holes, and that’s ok.  This is where you will place your leaves and stamen.

Bertuzzi-Photography-038 (1)Get your glue gun down in there, squirt some glue and  press your leaf in the hole.

Bertuzzi-Photography-039 (1)Get some more glue in there once that leaf  is in place and stick in that stamen!

Bertuzzi-Photography-040 (1)

Bertuzzi-Photography-041Now for our last decorative piece, what I like to call the feaux bow. Cut two pieces of your ribbon (I used this chevron burlap because it seems really sturdy for being outdoors.)

Bertuzzi-Photography-042Glue one side…

Bertuzzi-Photography-043 (1)…fold over to get your two loops.

Bertuzzi-Photography-044Lift your pedals on the side and glue your loops to the foam.

Bertuzzi-Photography-045Now you want to eye-ball the placement of your wooden letter and your decorative panel.  Once you know where you want it to be, glue down that letter with your hot glue gun.

Bertuzzi-Photography-046Measure the rough side of the velcro to the size of the of the soft side that you sewed to your panel.  Once you have measured and cut accordingly, glue the rough velcro to the wreath.  It will be lumpy and bumpy, but that’s ok.  It will stick!

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Now…repeat!  If you prepped to where you made more than enough felt pedals, foam panels, stamen, and leaves, making the other panels will be a breeze!  Here I made  spring, Valentine’s, patriotic, fall, Christmas, and Rockets themed panels.  All of them have the soft velcro on the back and can quickly be changed in and out.

Bertuzzi-Photography-061Place it on your door with the wreath hanger. I made a no big deal loop with my chevron ribbon and knotted it on the top.

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1 wreath for every holiday

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