OK, so I have seen this all over blogland for the past year, so it’s nothing new. I believe Eddie Ross did it first. Then I think I saw it over at Rhoda’s last year. And Chris shared hers last week. The more I saw them, the more I was mesmerized by them.
Then one of you lovelies (thanks Su!) suggested this wreath when I shared my Christmas dining table last week. I found a huge container of the bronze ornaments at Hob Lob on Friday for only $10, and the stars aligned and I knew it must. be. mine.
If you follow two simple pieces of advice this will be the easiest Christmas project you’ll do this year…listen to me carefully…I’m about to save you some major bad word saying and time. :)
OK, when Eddie says to hot glue the little tops onto the ornaments before you start, this is not a suggestion. For reals. Oh yes, you can tug at the little tops and think “Pushaw, these are totally fine – they’ll hold great!”
Ummm…don’t listen to yourself. Listen to me. Listen to Eddie. You think you are saving time by not hot gluing, but you’re really going to add another unnecessary 20 minutes onto this project if you ignore him. And me.
It takes two seconds to hot glue one on, so just do it, as Nike would say.
All you need for this project is a wire hanger (insert Mommie Dearest jokes here) and your ornaments. You also want the hot glue, unless you’re gonna ignore me. And a wire cutter of some sort if you don’t want to fill up the whole length of the hanger with ornaments.
This is the easy part – you just thread each ornament onto the wire, one by one. When you are done, twist the wire together to close the circle. Then arrange the ornaments so the wire is hidden as much as possible.
This is the next piece of advice you must not ignore – use the cheapest, thinnest wire you can find. I mean, seriously, my hubs must be taking his clothes to the Taj Mahal of dry cleaners cause OMG this stuff was hard to twist up to close at the end.
I mean, like, insanely, ridiculously hard. It was thick wire – do not use thick wire. Use the thinnest wire hangers you can find, umkay?
If you follow these two suggestions, I can promise you this will be the easiest, most beautiful wreath you’ve ever your set eyes on. If you chose to ignore, it will be the hardest, most beautiful wreath you’ve ever set your eyes on. :)
My container of bulbs (shatterproof) had 50 in it, and I used about 15 from my Goodwill stash as well. So approximately 30-something ornaments per wreath for mine – they are small but that’s what I wanted.
I hung them from cream ribbon (per Su’s suggestion!) in the two molding rectangles that flank our windows in the dining room:
If I can find a couple more in this color on the cheap, I’ll hang one from the little nails up there. If not, no one will ever notice them. Except all of you. ;)
One ended up being smaller than the other, but I was so over them at that point, I said forgetaboutit. Whateva. But they are gorg, so I got over it fast!
So again, if you follow my warnings advice – this is a quick and easy project! If not…well…don’t come cryin’ to me! OK, you can, cause I’ll cry with you.
Total cost for the two wreaths was $10 for the ornaments. Fantastic!
(Reason No. 329 I love Live Writer – I can add “gorg” and “pushaw” to my dictionary. Hellooo, those are words!)
