Christmas Wreaths

For Enrichment this month (for anyone who doesn't know Enrichment is where the ladies at our church get together to learn new things, make crafts, do service and other things together) we created wreaths. I had signed up but wound up not making one because I am picky. I wanted to make one with silver and purple Christmas ornaments but I couldn't find any purple glass ones. I guess I'll have to shop online. Anyways so I wound up just hanging out and entertaining my friend Heather's son Wyatt.

The young women I work with were invited to attend and participate also. It was last minute so we struggled to figure out how many girls were going to be there. We had a handful show up which was a lot less than I had hoped for (poor planning) so I took home six packages to make wreaths. I was okay with this because I figured we could use them to make as Christmas gifts for girls who are less active.

So yesterday afternoon I finally got tired of looking at the large bag sitting in my living room and then my craft room so I decided I would break out the glue gun and get to work. I got all six made. I finished the last one at 10:30pm. :) Whew!! It took longer than I thought it would but at least they are done and soon to be distributed and out of my house. :)

Below are the pictures of my fun time alone...along with some tricks I learned as I went.

I had six packages to make. Three were red, green and gold and three were blue and silver.

I removed the tops off of the ornaments.

Which then left this nice little bump. I didn't want little nubs sticking out so I...

Cut off the tops with some wire cutters. Since they were plastic I was able to do so relatively easily. But I learned quickly to do it into my garbage bag so pieces weren't flying every where and all over me. Now I would put the hot glue around the holes I had created and then put that straight onto the wreath but the oranments would wobble so obviously they needed to be connected. I only needed a dab and didn't want to get the glue gun involved directly. So I thought for a moment and ran upstairs to the kitchen and grabbed my container of toothpicks. I would put a dallop of glue on the end of the toothpick and carefully place it between the two ornaments and then force them together and hold it for a moment. The other part that was tricky was I was doing it in groups of three for the most part which meant one would be off the end and start to fall while I went to get the glue. So I would use the ribbon roll to hold the ornament in place. And tada!!! I have six decent looking wreaths to give away.

Oh a few last tips. When starting the ribbon on wreath and finishing it wrap the end up 2-3 times to give it a nice finished look.

Using the hot glue gun you always get the little strings everywhere right? Well the faster you move the less you have but when you do get them let it cool and then snap it off right away. If you wait too long you'll forget and then have a spider web looking wreath.