Thursday, November 17, 2011

Christmas Ornament Wreaths



Has anyone out there ever made Christmas ornament wreaths? And if so, what kind of glue did you use to adhere all the ornaments together? I made three of these wreaths several years ago and used hot glue, but every year I have to reglue many of the ornaments back onto the wreath because they've fallen off or are barely hanging on. There must be a better way!

Anyway, I do love my ornament wreaths :) I started with a styrofoam wreath form, wrapped it in garage-sale green and white gingham ribbon (I think it was 50c for a huge big box of ribbon!), and then painstakingly hot glued bulb after bulb onto the wreath. (The bulbs were of course thrifted also!) In the end, I took some blue ribbon I had on hand and tied it around the top of the wreath so that it could hang on the wall, and voila!

Here they are hanging above my mantel this year. (And in case you're wondering, I don't normally decorate THIS early... Santa Claus is coming to our house for a photo shoot on Sunday, and so I needed a nice backdrop so the pictures turn out cute!)


{Note to self: if ornament wreaths made with hot glue are hung over candles, do not light them! Doing so will heat up the glue, causing the ornaments to come crashing down and shatter all over the floor. Then the glue will cool again, and the shards of glass wil adhere to the floor. Seriously.}

And here they are a few years ago, hanging above my couch.



I also made the blue background thingies that the wreaths are hanging on. It was a really quick and cheap project that adds a lot of pizzazz to the wall. (For the other 11 months out of the year, I hang photos on them). I could totally see making some of these with red and green fabric, or perhaps thrifted vintage Christmas tablecloths... the possibilities are endless!

Here's how I made mine in case you're interested. I went to Lowes and bought the cheapest thing I could find, which happened to be that brown pegboard stuff. I covered it with some of the heaps and piles of quilt batting that I have laying around. (Isn't it the best when you find some brand new batting at a garage sale for next-to-nothing?!) Then I stapled on my fabric (I think my staple gun {and my glue gun too} are extentions of my right arm...) and finally attached a hanger-thingie on the back so I could hang it onto the wall. Then I hammered a nail into it so that I could hang something on each panel, and viola, there you have it!

This is a photo of how they looked at the old house. At the new house, I've decorated in a more contemporary style, so I changed out the frames and am now using pictures of my husband and kids rather than my ancestors. Here is how it looks now (Sorry for the dark picture; I took this at night)

No comments:

Post a Comment