Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Easter Wreath DIY

Hello, friends! This weekend I was able to enjoy 2 hours to myself while the Mister stayed home with the kiddos and I found myself pushing a cart all through Hobby Lobby looking for Easter inspiration.  I knew I wanted to make a wreath because 1) I'm obsessed with them and 2) my Valentine's day wreath was starting to look silly.  So I found a few things, mustered up and idea and got my eager hands working Saturday night.  This is what I came up with:


It has a lot of symbolism to me, personally.  I liked that this type of wreath looks a little like what we see as a crown of thorns in Elementary school passion plays.  I also liked that it looked a bit like a nest which is very spring-like.  I liked the purple flowers because purple is such a big color during the Easter pageantry mostly symbolizing Christ as the King who has conquered the grave (can I get an amen?).  And purple is another great spring color.  Then there's the cross representing, duh, the cross!  And the paper I used on it I wanted to look like text from the Bible.  I personally love it and am quite proud of it!

Would you like to make something similar?  I took pics along the way to form the tutorial below in case you do.

The supplies:
- Branch like wreath
- Stem of purple flowers
- 1 piece scrapbook paper
- 1 piece cardboard
- 1 glue stick
- Scissors
- Hot glue gun


First you'll make the cross.  I drew a cross shape on my cardboard as a reference when cutting.  You could use a stencil if you're technical and not rushed, of course.  Then, I used a glue stick to glue the entire scrapbook page to the back of the cardboard.  I actually did this before bedtime so it'd be good and dry for cutting.  I left it drying about 30 minutes total.  Then, I cut along my outside outlines for the cross and trimmed up from there until it was just the shape I wanted.  Pretty easy!


Next up, I cut the flowers from their stem.  I paid a little more for my flowers (the stem was $6 but I used a 40% off coupon to justify the price) because the stems were wire on bottom, but loose up top for a more natural look.  I didn't have wire cutters so I knew this would be important when it came to just using scissors.  I snipped them all up in varying lengths and then wove them into one side of the wreath.  I had to tuck some under branches in certain places to make them not stick out.

Sorry these pics are blurry!
And finally, I hot glued on my little cross and was done!  I ended up attaching a thin white ribbon to a secure branch on the wreath to hang on my door's nail.  If you have a wreath hook it should work fine, but I'm using a nail so it wasn't just going to stick there!  The pic below is pretty bad and the light is weird, but I'm throwing it up so you can see the ribbon.


Happy Easter, y'all! 

3 comments:

Allie said...

What a beautiful wreath! You've inspired me to make something similiar to your's. Thank you for sharing!

Anonymous said...

This is so beautiful! Could you please tell me the approximate size of the cross? I like the proportion of yours to the wreath.

Thank you!

Ashley said...

The cross is about 5" tall by 4" wide at the widest point. The wreath is about 18" tall. Hope that helps!