Easy Spring Wreath

Last week, David was gone on a work trip, so I made it my personal mission to spring-ify the house...mainly because Abby from Just a Girl and Her Blog had just participated in a spring home challenge and it inspired me. One thing on my to-do list was to make a super easy wreath for our front door. 

After a quick trip to Jo-Ann Fabric, I was ready to go.

Materials Needed:

• 12 inch foam wreath form
• natural colored twine
• silk flowers
• ribbon
• glue gun

Directions:

Start off by putting a little bit of hot glue on the wreath form and begin wrapping the twine around the form. As you wrap the twine, make sure each rotation is as close to the previous as possible to fully cover the foam. Every few inches, add a drop of glue to better hold the twine.

I decided to cover the foam twice to add a little more coverage and dimension, so after I made it around one full time, I just kept going.

After one full rotation of coverage

Halfway through second rotation of coverage

After the second coverage, I glued off the end and started in on the flowers. I was not sure how many flowers I would need, so I bought six white and six yellow. I started with a white flower head and just added additional flowers until I felt like it was enough. Of the twelve, I used eight. You could use less or more; that is completely up to you. NOTE: Depending on the size of your flowers, you may need to adjust the amount of glue you use. I did not want my flowers to be flimsy or risk falling off when the wind blew, so I used about a dime-sized amount of glue on each one.

Once my flowers were glued on, the only thing left was to add the ribbon, which would serve as the hanger. In total, I used about 16 inches of the ribbon.

This was a super easy wreath to make and only took one and a half episodes of Sex and the City to make (my new background noise since I have already run through all ten seasons of Friends on Netflix). My fingers hurt a little at the end due to wrapping the twine, but the final product was worth it. :)

the wreath could maybe be a little bigger, but oh well

Cork Board Makeover

Ever since we moved into our house, and especially since the school year started in September, my husband has been suggesting that I get a desk and create an office space of my own in one of the guest rooms. Without a desk to work at, I inevitably end up grading or lesson planning at the coffee table in the family room, at the dining room table, at the kitchen table, or at the counter...pretty much wherever there is an empty flat surface to work at. Well, I finally bit the bullet and bought a desk. It is not supposed to arrive until later in the week, so in the mean time, I figured I would makeover an old cork board.

Rather than buying a new cork board, I went over to my parents' house and got the old one out of my old bedroom. It was pretty faded and icky looking, but with it being 12+ years old, I expected no less.

After bringing the cork board back to the house, I assembled all of my materials and got to work.

one yard of fabric, adhesive spray, glue gun, 300 thumbtacks

I started by ironing the fabric because no one likes creases in their fabric-covered cork board.

Then, I sprayed the cork board with adhesive spray before laying the fabric on top. I smoothed out the fabric with my hands to make sure there were no bubbles or awkward layering. Notice that I left 3-4 inches of excess fabric around the edges of the cork board.

Next, I started to push in the thumbtacks.

My thumbtacks were not perfectly straight. In fact, some overlapped. However, it does not bother me too much. If I had really wanted to take the extra step, I could have used a straightedge to make sure everything was lined up. After all 275 thumbtacks were in place and my fingers felt like they were going to fall off, I hot glued the excess material onto the backside of the cork board. I then used the remaining 25 thumbtacks as additional support on the back.

All the while, my kitty assistant was keeping a close eye on things.

And that is it! The whole thing cost me roughly $15 for the fabric and thumbtacks, as I already had the glue gun and the adhesive spray.

Once the cork board is hung on the wall, I will add other things to it, but for now, I just pinned a pink bow (I LOVE pink) and and the charm from my wedding bouquet, which was a one sided locket with a picture of my kitten in it.