An Easter Wreath Tutorial by Hugs Kisses and Snot!

I love the name of Stephanie’s blog! How true are those three things and how often do they all come along together for us mother’s out there??? Stephanie has some great tutorials on her blog, Hugs Kisses and Snot, and parenting thoughts! I recently read one about remembering how old your kiddos are and the expectations that go with that age and it really made me think about my three year old! Honestly, I think back to it quite often!

Today let’s welcome Stephanie to I’m Feelin’ Crafty!!! Yea!! Thanks for joining us!!

Hi there, I’m Stephanie from Hugs, Kisses and Snot. At Hugs, Kisses and Snot you will find inexpensive crafts for kids and the home, everyday food that is husband and kid approved and my faith journey. I’m also a veteran IVF mom as well as experienced in raising a child with Sensory Processing Disorder. You can find our IVF and SPD stories as well as SPD resources.

I’m really happy to be guest posting for Louise today. I’ve found lots of inspiration for crafts to do with my kids and I’m in awe of her quilting abilities. I don’t quilt myself and am amazed by people who do. To me, beautiful quilts are like a work of art that you create with a sewing machine.

Anyhoo – When quilters aren’t quilting, they knit. And those who don’t knit…make yarn wreaths. That’s me. I can’t quilt or knit but I seem to have an abundance of yarn. I’ve put that yarn to good use making yarn wreaths.

Spring has sprung so it’s time to update the front door with a fresh spring wreath. Felt rosettes are nice but I wanted something different this year. Felt calla lilies will do the trick. These are so easy to make you won’t believe it. Part of me wants to keep it a secret and make everybody think that I went to a lot of work to create this but I’ll be nice and share.

Supplies:

14 or 16 inch straw wreath
green yarn
1 sheet purple felt
1 sheet white felt
yellow, off white or oatmeal yarn (I used oatmeal)
2 inch wide wired ribbon (I used paper ribbon)
large decorative butterfly (the butterfly I used was made of paper and coordinated with
the ribbon. But a butterfly made of feather will work great too)
hot glue gun
scissors
ruler

all of these supplies can be found at the craft store (Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, etc.)

First things first. Keeping the plastic on the wreath, wrap it with green yarn. The yarn does not have to wrap perfectly and line up exactly. That’s nearly impossible and imperfections make it more interesting. Just make sure you can’t see any of the straw
from the front.

Next, cut out 8 squares of purple felt and 8 squares of white felt. The squares are 3 X 3 inches. I used my scrapbooking cutting mat to measure but a ruler would work just fine.

Time to cut a stamen for the calla lily. Using another color of yarn (I used an oatmeal color because that is what I had in my basket) cut 16 pieces that are approximately 3 inches long. Position the yarn diagonally across the felt square and hot glue one half of the yarn down to the felt.

Here’s where it get’s tricky so pay attention…roll and glue. Did you catch that? Don’t let all this technical craft speak scare you. Just roll one corner in, glue. Then roll the other corner over and glue. Phew, nurse, dab my forehead please.

Continue the “roll & glue” method with all of the felt squares.

Now it’s time to attach them to the wreath. Start with a single layer of 4 flowers. I tried to alternate the colors at random. Position 4 flowers and hot glue to the wreath. Once the first layer of flowers is in place, overlap another layer of flowers on top of the original 4. Always arrange and rearrange each layer of flowers before gluing them down. Continue adding layers until the bottom layer is only 2 or 3 flowers.

Cut a piece of wired ribbon long enough to wrap around the wreath. Hot glue at the base of the bouquet. This will hide the base of the bouquet as well as provide a smooth surface to glue the ribbon embellishment.

Cut another piece of ribbon about a yard long (there will be extra but that can be trimmed). Begin folding it accordion style.

Pinch the first fold together and hot glue in place. Don’t glue the top fold (loop). Pinch the next fold to the hot glued side and glue that in place. Continue folding and gluing until you have about 7 or 8 loops. Trim the excess ribbon and glue the tail end of the ribbon to the last fold.

Once the glue has dried you can gently bend so that it spoons up against the wreath. Position it on the ribbon that you have previously placed on the wreath at the base of your bouquet. Apply a generous amount of glue to the inside curve of your loop-d-loop and place it on the ribbon that is on the wreath.

The final step is to secure the butterfly. Most decorative butterflies have a wire sticking out of the underside of their body. It has been my experience that this little wire is not secure inside the butterfly and the smallest breeze will send your butterfly fluttering away. Secure the wire with a large dollop of hot glue where the wire enters the body of the butterfly. Now you can poke the wire into the wreath but you will still need to put hot glue on the underside of the body and secure that to the wreath.

Done and done!