Holiday Wreath

The holiday craft bug has definitely bitten me.  For Halloween in order to let the kids in our building know that they could trick or treat at our door we had to decorate it.  I did a last minute thing that involved completely wrapping our door in reversed Xmas paper and putting flying baby ghosts made out of gauze all over it.  See baby ghost hanging out with a roller skating unicorn below…

The chaos that I created on the door got the point across to the kids, but it was not my best work.  So as I start to gear up for holiday crafting season, I wanted to make sure that my door was successfully celebrating Thanksgiving.  This is where the Turkey Wreath comes into play.  I had a 25% off Michael’s Craft coupon that was burning a hole in my pocket, so I headed to the craft store for inspiration.   While I was floating through the craft store in search of wreath supplies, I got sucked into the Martha Stewart glitter tunnel…no joke!  I left a little dazed, glitter somehow had gotten into my hair and I had an intense need to buy copious amount of glitter.  I don’t really have a need for glitter (yes, I do) at this moment, but the colors are soooooo Bee-U-Tee-Full that it makes me feel like I need it.  I am sure I could sprinkle a little glitter on the Turkey Wreath and it would make it all the better!

Martha Stewart Glitter…sooooo pretty!

I talked myself down from the glitter ledge, but I am still brainstorming crafts that I can make this holiday that would justify me buying a crap ton of glitter.

I finally found the wreath section and found 2 different sizes of hay rings.  I got a large one and two smaller ones so that I could make some turkey babies. I bought the cheapest yarn that I could find in turkey colors.  You know, turkey colors…brown, red, orange and yellow.  I picked up similar colors of felt…yellow, red and white and a bag of googly eyes for good measure.

Supplies – Makes at least 3 wreaths.

• 1 Large Hay Ring
• 2 Small Hay Rings
• Yarn: 1 Red, 1 Brown, 1 Orange, 1 Yellow
• Felt Sheets: 2 Red, 1 White, 2 Yellow
• 1 Pkg Goggly Eyes
• Glue gun and push pins if you don’t have some at home

The first thing I did was take the plastic off of my hay ring.  Just then, Derika walked in the door and asked me why I didn’t just leave the plastic on the ring since I was covering it up with yarn.  So smart she is! I am going to blame this hiccup on my glitter induced daze and pushed through the crafting mess that I had created.  Whatever you do, do not remove the plastic from the wreath or your house will look like this!

Messy Messy Messy! Leave the plastic on the wreath!

Open the brown thread and make a little yarn ball with it. You don’t have to make a yarn ball out of the whole thing, I am too impatient for that.  If your yarn ball runs out you can always add more to it.  Tie the brown string around the ring and begin to wrap the ring with the brown yarn.  Take some care with this and try to be a little bit neat.  Cover a little less than half of your ring with brown yarn.

Make a red yarn ball and start to add a red section to your ring.  Use your best judgment. You want to leave enough room on the ring so that you can have a red section, a yellow section, and orange section and then repeat.

Once your ring is completely covered in yarn, it will totally begin to look like a turkey. 🙂 Next take the white felt and cut out some eyes. Use the yellow felt to cut out the beak and the feet, and use the red to cut out the gobbler.

Have fun cutting out these pieces.  They don’t have to be perfect and I think that each of the turkeys that I make will end up having their own unique personality.

Next begin heating up your glue gun, while you place the felt pieces onto your wreath with pushpins to get the placement right.

Place your felt pieces where you like them so that you can begin to see a turkey, secure them with glue from the glue gun.

Once all of your felt pieces are secure, your turkey will have a bit of a death stare going on…get rid of it! To add a little more personality and to get rid of the creepy eyes, I added some googly eyes, but you could use buttons, something glittery or whatever your little heart desires.

I tied a little string onto the top to help with the hanging process…and there you have it, my fabulous turkey is complete.

Turkeys hanging out with each other before they find their forever home.

Now go spread some turkey love!

Update 12/9/13!

Here are some latest photos of my snowman wreath.

The assembly of my snowman wreath was very similar to the turkey wreath.  I covered the whole hay wreath with white yarn.  I then rapped a section with read yarn, and tied orange and yellow pieces over the read to make it look like a scarf.

After the wreath was completely wrapped with yarn, I then cut out the pieces for the snowman face, hat and I made his arms out of pip cleaner.

I attached his hat, his eyes noes and buttons and I glued his arms on the back of the scarf with a hot glue gun.  Once the arms were dry, I added google eyes so that he had a little bit more personality and voila, you have a snowman wreath!

Happy Holidays!

Posted by Danielle Heckman & filed under Uncategorized. This post has 9 comments.