Making A Burlap Wreath for Fall Into Christmas

Maybe it is the cool weather, but I have been feeling inspired and craved creating things.  My friend texted me that she wanted something different for her door, a wreath for fall but nothing that you could purchase in the stores.  She wanted something natural and something that could transition into Thanksgiving-maybe to pre-holidays.

My favorite objects are twine and burlap so I decided to try my hand at making a wreath using them.

I took a round Styrofoam wreath, wrapped it with burlap ribbon and held the end down with a pin.

The twine is large, so I took an upholstery needle with a large eye, threaded it with the twine and ran a running stitch just below the white stitching on the burlap ribbon.  Because burlap has such an open weave, I tied a knot at the end of the ribbon where I started so the twine would not pull through.  As I went along, I would gather up the burlap into the amount of gathers I wanted around the wreath.  I didn't cut the burlap, just kept doing the running stitch, pull on it to make the gather until it fit all around the wreath.  Then I cut the ribbon, tied a knot in the twine and pinned it to the inside of the wreath.  Out came the hot glue gun and I glued the gathered ribbon to the wreath.

Then I turned the wreath over and did the same thing on the opposite side of the wreath.  You can position the second row of gathered burlap so it is glued more inside the wreath to make it shorter than the opposite side; or glue it higher on the wreath form.  The behind burlap should look like it is wider than the front burlap.

I had a length of upholstery webbing that I tied into a bow and glued it to where the gathered burlap met, the seam, so you can not see the seam with the bow on top of it.  Hold down with fingers a while until it is dried, add more glue if needed.

Then the fun part, I cut some small pomegranates from our trees, bunched them together.  I tied twine to them and wrapped their stems and then took the twine ends and tied them to the wreath.  This is what I plan on changing in a few weeks when the leaves on the permanganates die.  I will make another bunching of either leaves or small pumpkins or use bats and glue them around the wreath for Halloween.

Fairly simple, the wreath cost me about $6 because I wanted it today and didn't wait until I had a sale coupon from Joann's.  The burlap ribbon comes in various widths and textures, I use it all the time in my floral arrangements.  It costs about $1 a yard and I estimate you will need about 2-3 yards, depending on how ruffled/gathered you want it to look.  You have to do it twice, so that is about another $5 and whatever you use for your bow.  If you use the same burlap material, I think it would be hard to see it against the burlap of the wreath and it needs to be fairly substantial in size.  So you can have less than $15 on a wreath that will take you from Autumn to Winter to the Holidays.  Just change the hanging decorations.

We had a visit from an Alien yesterday.  I took a picture and sent it to my daughter to see what she thought.  She showed it to my granddaughter Carli who is 8 years old and she said, "Oh Grandma, that isn't an Alien, those are feet marks from a chicken whose feet are muddy."  Kids are so smart!!! 

What do you think?

Have a great weekend!!