Christmas Wreath Project

This weekend, I wanted to finish several Christmas projects including my Christmas cards (not done until Monday), wrapping presents (still not 100% done), and my wreath.  I may not have finished the first two by my deadline, but I finished my Christmas wreath project on Sunday morning!  I'd actually had this idea since last year when I started seeing lots of wreaths made from Christmas balls in the store.  Last year, at an after-Christmas sale, I bought a big box and a small box of shatter-resistant ornaments for a steal of a deal.  I wasn't really sure how to put it together ... I didn't know if I should hot glue the ornaments to a foam wreath form or what.  A few weeks ago, I saw this tutorial on a blog I follow, and I decided to give my old idea a try! 

It was really easy and fun - the whole project took me less than an hour and cost me less than $5.00.  These ornament wreaths are selling at Lowe's for $29.99 for the small and $39.99 for the large - I would call mine small, but the ribbon is huge!  :)  I'd recommend this project to even the most novice of Christmas crafters because it was really easy, is totally customizable, and (in my humble opinion) looks pretty neat when it's finished.  I would highly recommend buying ornaments this year at the after-Christmas sales if you want to make the project, because that saved me a lot of money.  So, here's how I did it in case you'd like to give it a try.

I started with a lot of large shatter-resistant ornaments, a lot of small shatter-resistant ornaments, a hot glue gun, a large roll of holiday ribbon, and a white wire hanger from the dry cleaner's.

A dog assistant is also helpful, but not 100% necessary.  :)

My first step was to remove the tops from all the ornaments and hot glue them back on.

 

Next, I untwisted the wire hanger, formed it into a circle, and started stringing ornaments onto the wire.  I just alternated big and small, but I occasionally strung two big or two small together just to shake it up.  At first, I wasn't sure how this was going to go because it didn't look full, and all the ornaments really just hung straight down.

But, once I got going, all the ornaments started to fall into place.  I really only had to twist and arrange the ornaments two or three times.

 

After I used all my ornaments - and I think I could've easily used more - I twisted the top of wire hanger back together and pulled it tight.  Be careful pulling it tight... when I was pulling hard enough to get the two top ornaments to touch, two of the lower ornaments snapped from the pressure.  So, I left a little slack in the wire, which wound up being a nice place for the ribbon.

Then, I cut off the excess wire... probably the toughest part of this project, even with my totally tough scissors.

Then, I started working on the ribbon.  I cut a long strip, looped it around the wire part, and hot glued the ends together.

Then, I cut three long strips of ribbon and glued the ends together on each.

I laid them over each other...

gathered them in my hand...

and used a shorter piece of ribbon to gather them together.  Then, I hot glued that short piece around the loops to make the bow.

Finally, I hot glued the big bow to the bottom of the ribbon hanger and hung it on the door!

Voila!

A bright and shiny ornament wreath for our front door!

I hope you'll try it!