When I tell you I have searched high and low for a new Christmas wreath, I'm not exaggerating. I have searched thrift stores, antique stores, box stores, and more trying to find the right one but I just couldn't find one. So, I decided to make my own. After a trip to Dollar Tree and a couple hours later I had made one. However, it was not pretty or what I had imagined in the slightest.
I later resorted to Amazon to try and find one and that is where I found my inspiration for a wooden door wreath. I have a wooden door hanger that I bought from a friend about two years ago and it is a little rough from being in the elements. So, I thought, let's give it a face lift!
This is what I started with. As you can tell the varnish had started wearing off, there were sprigs of greenery missing, and the words were starting to crack. To get this piece ready for a revamp I started off by taking the bow, greenery, and vinyl lettering off and resorted to sanding the wood. I didn't worry too much about getting the white paint off because I'm just going to paint over it. Boy, was I wrong for thinking that!
These are the supplies I used to prep the wooden wreath. I needed a flat head screwdriver to get the staples out from the previous design, a razor blade scraper to get the vinyl lettering off and then various sand paper grits for the wood.
Once I got all the decorations off it was time to sand. I sanded all the varnish off and made sure I had a smooth finish for the new project. After prepping I painted the whole board, backside included, with a quick drying matte black acrylic paint. I used the sponge type brushes to apply it and went to town. While the paint was drying I used my Cricut machine along with Canva.com to design what I wanted. I was going for something simple because I knew I was going to add a bow and greenery later on and didn't want too much going on. Once the paint was dry it was time to apply my vinyl that I had cut and this is where not getting rid of the white paint became an issue. When applying vinyl it is ideal to use a transfer tape however, I didn't realize that the black paint would come off with the transfer tape and I ended up with this...
After two fails of attempting to make a Christmas wreath I thought maybe it's just not meant for me to have one this year, but, I put on my big girl pants after throwing a mini pity party and got back to planning a new route. I knew that there wasn't any white on the back side of the wood so I flipped it over and started again with the cutting and application of vinyl. Wouldn't you know it turned out beautiful!
I made the bow from some ribbon I bought at Walmart and applied the greenery. When it comes to making bows, the way I learned is to just play around with the ribbon until you get the desired look. For this bow I took about a yard of ribbon and wrapped it around itself three times for one side then repeated the process for the other side. You want to make sure that you leave "tails" so you can have that classic bow look. To get the tapered ends you will take your fabric, fold it in half, then cut from the "inside" portion of the ribbon to the "outside". I kept the two sides of the ribbon together by using a pipe cleaner and then fashioned a cover for the middle out of more ribbon.
Here is the final outcome! I couldn't be happier with how this turned out!
As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out!
Until next time...
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