Pinspiration: Burlap Wreath

 I can't explain why, but I am so in love with burlap.  I just want it to be everywhere! Last fall I was investigating making my own fall wreath and I fell in love with this bubble burlap wreath on Pinterest.  My friend and I went and bought the necessary supplies.  Later, I cut the burlap into strips and then into small squares, creating a gigantic mess all over everything, vacuumed for half an hour, and then attempted to pin the bubbles.  I got confused and then gave up.  (My friend's bubble wreath turned out perfectly, so we know it is possible!)

Then, I decided to find something simpler.  So I found this tutorial for the ruffled burlap wreath.  Looked super simple, so I went out armed with my Michael's, JoAnn and Hobby Lobby coupons, bought all of the supplies for this wreath, stuffed it into my junk cupboard and never followed through.  Sigh.  Sounds like the opposite of a high-functioning frugal girl, huh? Well....September 2012 rolled around and I was NOT going to let fall go by again with these wreath supplies lying around.  I made the ruffled wreath one afternoon and it was not difficult at all.  Keep in mind that I have never successfully sewed a button on or mended a hole in a garment, so the ruffling must be easy.

After reading a few tutorials on making fabric flowers--here and here, I made a couple flowers out of a scrap of fabric and an old sweater with a hole in it.  Then I painted the "L" with some leftover house paint and found that cute denim flower for $2 in the scrapbooking department at Hobby Lobby, overall coupons included I spent approximately $11 on the wreath.  Not too shabby for something I can use several years!

My sister really liked the wreath and wanted to make her own, but hadn't gotten to it, so for her birthday I made the wreath below for her.  She had mentioned she wanted something even simpler than the ruffle wreath, and she loved the final product.

For the wreath below the supplies needed are:

• Straw or foam wreath, this straw one was probably 18'' diameter
• 3/4 yard of burlap, cut into 2 1/2 inch strips
• hot glue gun & glue sticks
• pins
• fabric flowers--I used 1/8th yard of the brown patterned fabric, 1/8th yard of the cream colored fabric, a leftover strip of brown burlap, & and a few pieces of denim from an old holey pair of jeans
• a cardboard star ornament ($.68 at Hobby Lobby)
• any other embellishments you'd like: wooden cutout shape or letter, etc.
• ribbon of your choice to wrap for attachment to a hook or holder.

Steps to make the wreath:

1. Wrap the wreath with strips of burlap or other fabric, hot gluing on the back as you go.  Once the entire wreath is covered go back and add some pins over the back of the wreath to keep the fabric even more securely in place.
2. Make your rolled fabric flowers or fabric roses (I take no credit for these ideas, these tutorials helped me greatly!)
3. Lay your flowers, embellishments, wooden cutouts, etc. on the wreath to see where you want them.  Glue or pin to secure your flowers.
4. Wrap a piece of ribbon around the wreath and tie to make the hook/holder attachment.  This part is great because it's easy to exchange out ribbons to bring out different colors.

Cost of the wrapped burlap wreath:

$3 for the actual straw wreath (used my 50% off Michael's coupon)

$4 for burlap from Walmart

$1.75 for cream colored fabric from Walmart

$.69 for the brown fabric @ Hobby Lobby (sale that week)

$.69 for the cardboard star ornament

$1.00 in glue sticks (I used a lot of glue sticks on this!)

The other fabric, ribon & burlap I had leftover from other projects.  Total Cost is less than $12!

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