Monday, December 9, 2013

Blog Update & Homemade Christmas Wreath!

As you have probably noticed, I have re-vamped my blog! It's taken a bit of time and it's not finished yet, but I figured the website was now blog-post-worthy! It was time for some change and I am liking the lay out of the website a lot more now. You will have to let me know what you think of the changes! I know it's crazy different, but I like the vibe it has and I think it will work out great. Once it's completely finished, I will dedicate a post to the new look, but for now I just wanted to do a quick intro as to what would be coming up!

Anyways, on to the good stuff!

I was on Better Homes&Gardens website last week and saw a picture of a Christmas wreath made out of pine cones and I fell completely in love with it. It was so simple, but so gorgeous. Here's the picture:


My first thought was "I can totally make that" - so here we are, making a wreath. Here's how you do it!

Step 1: Buy/Make a Pinecone Wreath
I was lucky enough to find a pine cone wreath at winners that would work for what I needed. But if you can't find one, you can always get a styrofoam wreath ring and hot glue gun pine cones to it to make your wreath - that way you can make your wreath any size you want.

Step 2: Spray Paint
The wreath in the picture above was covered in grey spray paint. I opted for a flat white spray paint for my wreath because the walls in my house are already grey and I didn't want the wreath to be totally lost against the background - you can use whatever works for you! Silver or a similar metallic colour would also work really well.

Note: If your wreath is made out of a styrofoam wreath ring, use a water based spray paint. The chemicals in regular spray paint tend to eat through styrofoam and cause it to disintegrate. I ran into this problem before and it was a total nightmare - not knowing the difference, I used regular spray paint on styrofoam and the project I was working on melted in seconds right in front of my face. I was totally rotted.
Now you can't say I didn't warn you.

Step 3: Place Your Ornaments
Once the spray paint has dried, it's time to figure out where to place your ornaments on your wreath. I was able to find three red cardinals and some small red non-shattering christmas bulbs at Michaels but I'm sure you could find them at any craft store around now where Christmas is in full swing.

I used 4 red miniature bulbs and 5 red small bulbs. Before I attached the ornaments, I laid the wreath down flat on a table and placed the ornaments so that I could decide where I wanted to position all the pieces. Once I was happy with the look I used a hot glue gun to stick the pieces on.

Here is a picture of my final result!


Hope you all enjoy the wreath as much as I do!