DIY Autumn Wreath

I did it! I made my first wreath. I said the other day I was inspired by another blog's DIY tutorial for an autumn wreath that looked pretty simple, and I went that day and bought supplies to make my own. I started on Monday night, but didn't get very far since I didn't buy enough ribbon (more on that in a sec). I really wasn't expecting to finish the wreath last night, but I did! And I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out:

Not bad, eh? Naturally, there are a few little things I would do differently if I made another one, but I'm pretty proud of my first attempt! Right now, its hanging on the pantry door in the kitchen. I originally intended it to be hung on the front door in the living room, but I think its too small for that door. I may or may not make a bigger one. Actually, I have an idea for a different front door autumn decoration.... ( ;

Autumn is my absolute favorite season. I love the warm days and the cool nights, and the crispness in the air. And I love the fall colors. I'd decorate with fall colors year-round if I could. So this baby will be hanging around until the very end of November, when I'll bring out my Christmas decorations. Surprisingly, DH really liked my wreath, too. He's skeptical of DIY projects like this, and he watched me making this last night with a "look" on his face. But when I was done and held it up for him, he was impressed. He even wants me to make some to sell at our church's annual Harvest Sale (all items are donated and the money goes to the church, and people love to buy crafty stuff like this!).

So here's a quick tutorial of how I made this wreath. It couldn't be more simple.

I started out with a styrofoam wreath and some pretty ribbon from Michael's:

Then I just wrapped the ribbon tightly around the foam, using hot glue at the beginning and end of the roll to secure it. I only made it halfway through with one roll of ribbon:

So the project was put on hold until the next day. Yesterday, I bought two more rolls of the ribbon, just in case. And thank goodness I did, cause it took a whole second roll and just a bit of the third! Next time I'll choose wider ribbon and be more careful about the spacing - I think I overlapped this ribbon a bit too much. It has a sparkly edge, though, and for some reason that made it difficult for me to get the overlapping just right. Anyway, here's a shot of the whole wreath wrapped:

I didn't get any pictures of the rest of the process. It went pretty quickly, and I was so excited to finish, haha. But I had purchased several bunches of fall flowers from Michael's, and I used wire cutters to snip the flower heads off and try to get them as flat as possible on the back. Besides the flowers (mostly mums), I also bought some fake fall-colored leaves and some adorable miniature pumpkins. One of the bunches of flowers had some pretty sunflowers and some random fall-like details (not sure how to describe those, haha) like the feathers you see in my wreath.

Next, I laid the flowers in a circular pattern on my rug and played with them until I liked the arrangement. Then I just started hot gluing them onto the wreath. I found that its much easier to put the glue on the flower back and then press it into the wreath (I started out by putting the glue on the wreath first). The hot glue dries really quickly, so like I said, this was a quick project. I did go through about 4 tubes of the mini glue sticks, though! I ended up having to snip off more flower heads to fill up empty space, since I didn't account for the roundness of the wreath in my planning. No worries, though. Then I just kept adding extras, like green leaves, until I was satisfied with the wreath. And voila!

I originally thought I'd leave some open spaces so you can see the ribbon underneath, but I didn't like that. I liked it fuller! You can see the ribbon from both sides though:

You could fill in more flowers and stuff around the edges to hide the base, but I liked being able to see the pretty ribbon.

This wreath is so cheery in my kitchen! I don't decorate the kitchen much with the seasons, so I love the little pop of color in there. Now I'm itching to do more projects like this! ( :

Here's a couple of detail shots, just cause I like it so much.  ( :