Making a Fall Wreath

If you haven't yet, read my last blog about Getting into Fall. It will set the mood for this fun activity. As I thought about decorating for fall, I realized that I didn't have a fall wreath, and everyone needs a fall wreath! So I googled it to see if I could find any cool ideas to copy. I found one! It's from a blog called Crafting Mom (I know, I know. Totally nerdy. But I loved it!). Her idea was to make roses with felt and hot glue them onto a wreath. Perfect. So I picked up some felt in a few fall colors and got to work. 

A couple of years ago, I found a 10' strand of branches at a garage sale. I figured I would find a use for it one day. And I did!

 Here are the colors that I used for the wreath: burgundy, brown, tan and gold.

I cut a piece of the branches that was the size I was looking for. I think my wreath is about a foot to a foot and a half in diameter.

Then I had to find a way to bind the branches together. I figured a rubber band would probably be the best choice, and it ended up being pretty easy to do. It would obviously be much easier to start with a pre-made wooden wreath, so I recommend doing that.

To disguise the rubber band, I found a golden yellow ribbon that added a really nice touch to the wreath.

 Now to make the roses. I cut the felt into circles (anywhere between 4" and 8" in diameter). It helps to have special fabric cutting scissors, but as long as your scissors are sharp, you should be fine.

Then I cut the circles into fairly wide swirls. Starting from the center and working my way outside, I begin to wrap the felt swirls into the shape of roses. I used my hot glue gun occasionally to glue the roses together.

 It ended up being easier than I thought it would.

 Baby roses!

I arranged the roses the way I wanted them and hot glued them onto the wreath. My only regret is that I didn't buy use any gold/orange felt roses. I might add some next year, but for now, here's my wreath! 

Most Recent Art Obsession: Trees

These ceramic plaques started their lives as kitchen decor. One of them featured tomatoes; the other peas. Definitely not the style of decor I'm going for in the house. But I saw their potential, and more importantly, saw the fact that they were 90% off at Jo Ann Fabrics. Clearance is one of my weaknesses. But for less than a buck a pop, I figured they were worth the investment, even if they didn't end up working out.

I'm not the kind of artist that can imagine something up in my mind and transfer the idea onto paper. I need a visual representation of an idea, which I can then attempt to replicate. So like most of my other artwork, these are not entire my own creations. I found 2 pictures online that I really liked and copied them. However, I did add my own flare, so I suppose that makes them "mine."

I started with this one, which definitely ended up being the most difficult and time consuming. I decided to repaint the background, since I didn't like how it first turned out. The challenge was figuring out how to smoothly transition from color to color, without blending them together too much. This picture is called "Hopeful Winter."

This picture ended up being significantly different from the one I found online, mostly because I wasn't able to replicate the stroke technique. The background colors are also a variation from the original. Since this is a different painting style than the first, it ended up taking less than half the time the first one took. I call this "Spring Showers."

I used acrylic paint on both of these. The total cost of this project ended up being about $3.

They are now hanging in my dining room.

Recent Artwork

I've always been interested in various forms of artistic expression (drawing, painting, sewing, photography), but haven't invested much time into cultivating my skills. However, as of late, I have had the urge to explore my creative side. So, I've taken it upon myself to do a number of paintings and other "crafty" projects for the house. Here's one of my recent projects, which now hangs above the fireplace in the living room.



This is half of the 2-canvas project. I wanted to use birds as my theme, and was using a number of different pictures as inspiration for mine.



This is the other half of my project.



And this is what they look like together. Before I started the project, I knew that I wanted to have a continuous picture over the 2 canvases. I love vibrant colors, so I thought I definitely went for the bold look. I ran into an issue of the bird on the blue canvas not standing out enough from the background, so I decided to add a lighter oolor behind, which immediately looked like a moon. What started out as merely two different colored backgrounds came to represent "night and day." The birds' names are Winston and Harriet.