The Great Wreath-Making Project

We've had the same Christmas wreath forever, and I saw several ideas in magazines and in blogs that I wanted to try to make this year. One of them (can't remember exactly where) said to take old ornaments and glue them on a wreath. Well, I didn't have enough old ornaments to spare, in the right colors, so I decided that I would just pick up some inexpensive ones to use. Four stores later, I found what I needed at Target.

The project sat around for a couple of weeks until I realized that I needed to make it, or save it for next year. Long story short, it took me two days to make and more containers of ornaments than I originally bought. I think it cost me about $50 to make, but I am happy with the result.

I started with a white styrofoam form that I began to paint silver, then decided not to bother. Some websites suggest using a straw wreath, or I'd consider using a green foam wreath that is softer, and the ornaments could possibly be pushed into it. All of the ornaments that I used are plastic, and I removed the caps from them. The ornaments are attached with hot glue, but I have a cool melt gun, and had to hold the ornaments that actually touched the wreath for a couple of minutes for them to set. Maybe it would have taken less time with a hotter glue gun? The ornaments in successive layers that only touched each other took a lot less time to set.

Once the wreath was complete, we didn't want it to fall off our front door and break, or have the impact of the door slamming cause the wreath to bang into it and damage it (our door is glass), so we hung it with a wreath hanger, plus fishing line wrapped around it and attached to the door with a suction cup, and finally foam that is hot-glued to the door. It doesn't move at all!

Here are some photos of the process and completed project: