I have never really made it a point to decorate for the holidays outside of Halloween and Christmas. But I have a hard time being idle lately, so I made this easy yarn wrapped wreath to get a little festive for Valentine's Day. I can take the wreath from our sticks and bricks to the camper since it's compact and easy to hang. Our camper is small, so when decorating, I have to keep the limited space in mind.
This isn't my first yarn wreath rodeo. I have made wreaths for my office, guest bathroom, and a Disney-themed wreath for a friend's 50th birthday. In my opinion, the hardest part is wrapping the yarn around the wreath, and that really has more to do with my arm getting tired than anything else.
I put together a tutorial if you're interested in making your own. This 9.5 inch wreath, including the felt flowers, took me about an hour and a half to make, including interruptions.
Gather your supplies. Most of these are available at your local craft or department store, Amazon, or Dollar Tree:
· Yarn in the color you want
· An extruded foam wreath.* You choose the size that works best for the space your finished wreath will go. The one I used in this project is from Dollar Tree.
· Felt (to make felt flowers) or any embellishments you want to add to your wrapped wreath. The felt can be any color you choose. You may also want to make felt flowers, but this tutorial will not cover that.
· Wide satin ribbon. Or, if you're going for a minimalist look, fishing wire will work as well.
· Scissors
· Glue or glue gun
· Butter knife, letter opener, flathead screwdriver, or knitting needle
Pulling your yarn from the middle of the skein to keep it from getting tangled, start wrapping the yarn around the wreath form. It feels awkward because you have to keep pulling the skein through the wreath as you wrap. You can continue wrapping until the loose end is covered or tack it down with a little bit of glue.
Be careful not to overlap the yarn over itself. Your wreath will look sleek if each wrap lays in line. Throughout the wrapping process, stop to see if you have any loose sections or holes. If you do, push the yarn in to ensure you have a tight, uniform wrap around the wreath. Continue wrapping the wreath until it is completely covered. Once it's covered, cut the yarn from the skein. To hide the tail, you can either use a butter knife, screwdriver, or another slightly sharp and flat object to tuck the tail into the wrapped yarn on the back of the wreath. For this project, I simply cut the tail short and used my glue gun to glue it in place. Who is going to see the back anyway?
Next, it's time to add your embellishment. These can be buttons, seasonal objects from the craft store, felt flowers, or whatever you imagine.
If you choose to make felt flowers, the options are endless—a quick search online yields various tutorials, from rosettes to daisies and everything in between. I'm admittedly lazy, so I always make the simplest felt flower possible. I'd call it a twist on rosettes and ranunculus flowers, which might just be my favorite type of flower, felt or otherwise.
To make my simple felt flowers, start with a small square of felt. The size of your felt square will dictate the size of your flower.
Start cutting a swirly circle from one end of the square. Continue cutting your circle toward the center of the felt square. When you get to the center, you'll have a large-ish shaped felt end compared to the end you started cutting. See the video. (It's my first process video!)
When you're finished cutting, you'll have a spiral-shaped piece of felt. Starting from the small end, start rolling your felt toward the center, sort of like you would roll up a sleeping bag. See what I did there camping and RV friends?
When you roll to the end of the felt spiral, you'll meet up with the large end from the center that I described earlier. Dab some glue and glue it to the bottom of your flower. If you have any pointy edges from the original square shape, you can trim those off (or not).
Once you have made all of your flowers, arrange them however you'd like on your wreath and glue them in place. Let them (or whatever embellishments you used) dry, wrap your ribbon or string around the wreath and hang your finished wreath on a hook. To hang it in our camper I looped fishing wire through the wreath, draped the wire over the bathroom door and tied it to towel rack on the opposite side of the door.
And now you have a simple, pretty decoration! Enjoy!
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