Gotta Have a Wreath!

At Christmas time, you just gotta have the wreath on your front door…a wreath is just as important as the tree!

I bought this wreath about twelve years ago at JoAnns, and I love it! Really!  It has held up so well!

It has had three makeovers and still looks brand new even though it lays on the door in the cold weather with the sun shining on it. The sun had faded the glitter ball ornaments from the last two years…it was time for another makeover. I got into my stash of thrift store finds and found a oval wood plaque that I found at the DI (thrift store) for $.75. I chose a Christmas-y piece of Scrapbook paper for the plaque and then headed to one of my favorite stores…the dollar store. I found the glitter berries in cranberry,white and lime green. That matched the paper that I chose. They didn’t have ribbon that I liked so I went to Walmart for it. They had the perfect cranberry colored ribbon…YAY!

This is how it all came together…

I painted the plaque white, (the precious moments girl on the front just didn’t look Christmas-y enough…hehehe) then when it was dry, I layed it on the scrapbook paper and traced around it. Cut out the paper modpodge it to the top. Waited for it to dry, then sand the edges of the paper/wood off.

I got out my trusty silhouette and cut the “Merry Christmas” in black vinyl using the font Elise. I stuck it onto the plaque/scrapbook paper, and then did another thin layer of modpodge to seal it. When it was dry, I applied some walnut color stain around the edges, where I had sanded and the plaque was done…well, almost…I had to decide how to put it into the wreath. 

First I thought I would stick it onto the wreath on the side…it didn’t look good, it was too big for the wreath…I decided to just hang it in the center. That meant I had to drill a couple holes. I got out the drill and drilled two holes about 1 1/2″ a part.

Perfect!

Then I laced the ribbon through…the holes they were too big for the ribbon.

Hmmm.

NOW WHAT?

Oh, got I got it!

I laced the ribbon from the back of the plaque, tied a loose knot over the hole. Then put the ribbon through the other hole and then tied a loose knot on it also. (like you would if you were sewing) Then I used my glue gun to hold the knots in place.   I tied the plaque into the center of the wreath with ribbon and then started working with the berries. They were all connected like a floral bunch, so, I just used wire snips to cut them apart. after they were all cut apart, I put them in bunches of three…one of each color and started arranging them where I thought they looked good..I could just “wrap” the wire stems around the wire on the wreath so it was pretty simple. Then I cut the ribbon,made the bows and tied them to the wreath with fishing line.

THE WREATH….

ANOTHER VIEW:

It goes perfect with the outdoors-y look I have on my porch…love the ladder!

What do you think? I’m loving it!

 This ornament wreath  is in the inside of my home!  Love it too!

I’m linking up to these fabulous parties!