A Pin A Week: Patriotic Wreath

I am excited about this one. I'm excited about all of them, of course, or I wouldn't do them, but I have long desired a wide collection of wreaths for my front door that I could change out depending on holiday and season...this is just the beginning. :0)

I can't take credit for the idea. I found it here on Pinterest. (Where else?) I think I might use a very similar idea for some other projects I hope to work on in the future though.

This is all you will need. You might have most of it around your house. I didn't, so went out and bought all of it, but it was still a very reasonably priced project. 

 I chose to keep the wrapping around the wreath, feeling that it would be easier to wrap the yarn around it if it was contained in this way. I think I was probably right about this. You could also use one of those foam wreaths or the green ones made for flower arrangements if you wanted to. It might make it easier to wrap.

 

 I then took the yarn and very patiently began to wind it around the wreath. Being the detail freak I am, I counted out the appropriate 13 stripes and also made sure that each stripe had an equal number of rotations of yarn (I did 20 for each color, in case you were wondering). I think the wreath would look nice with fewer stripes, and even if they weren't even in size...but I just couldn't let myself get that "wild". :0)

I secured the ends of the yarn to the back of the wreath with my hot glue gun, burning myself a couple of times in the process. I then would wrap the next color over the end of the color before it, hiding any messy imperfections at the end of each piece. When I got done with my 13 red and white stripes, I covered the rest of the wreath in blue yarn...which of course left me needing some stars.

I had considered buttons, felt, even paper, but I ended up getting very lucky and finding these gems! They are "buttons" made out of shell. Very delicate, but just beautiful and just what I wanted for this project. (Seriously, I spent a week just looking for what I was going to use for my stars. I am so happy I didn't settle for anything and found these. I am so happy with them!)

I again got out the glue gun and used it to affix 13 stars to the wreath, one representing each of our original 13 colonies. (There was just not enough room for 50 stars!) I spent a few minutes trying different layouts of the stars before settling on one and gluing them down. I am very happy with what I ended up with. It is great, not only for something like the the of July, but any time I am feeling particularly patriotic. (And being a military family, I feel like that a lot.)