Cardinal and White Pinecone Wreath

It feels so good to be accomplishing things on my Christmas Craft List!  The first project I conquered was this cardinal and white pinecone wreath.  I got the idea off Pinterest via Better Homes and Gardens (see original project here), but I made it with my own twist!

The tutorial called for a store bought pinecone wreath, but I thought, "Why pay for a pinecone wreath when I have plenty of pinecones in my own backyard?"  So I picked up bunches and bunches of pinecones, then bought a grapevine wreath at Jo-Ann's with my 40% off coupon.

I laid out the pinecones on the wreath where I wanted them, then used an unprudent amount of hot glue to stick them in place permanently.  I used about half a bag of glue sticks, if you can believe that!

Once everything was all tacked down, I spray painted the whole thing white.  I didn't bother to make sure everything was evenly coated.  I wanted the wood to show through so it looked like it was more frosted than just white.

Once the paint dried, I put on the red birds and red bells instead of the ornaments the original tutorial called for, both of which I got for 60% off at Jo-Ann's.  And voila!  I think it turned out great, and I'm so excited to hang it in our living room with the rest of our Christmas decor, which is all red and white bird themed. :)

I hope you're chipping away at your Christmas bucket list!  Thanks for reading.

--CC

Scrappy Fourth of July Wreath

This morning this post showed up on my dashboard and made me realize I have absolutely no Fourth of July decorations up.  What shame!  I wasn't going to let Cher show me up, so I climbed over a bunch of boxes to get to my crafting stash to see what kind of red, white and blue thing I could whip up.  This is what I had:

So I decided to throw it all together into a scrappy wreath.  And, let me tell you, it felt good to be crafting again for a change!  I cannot wait until this move is over!  But anyway...I just wrapped all the red, white and blue scrap fabric I could find around a straw wreath that my friend Alejandra brought over a few days ago.  I tied and hot glued the fabric in place and added some embellishments to spruce it up. 

I whipped up a couple of loopy flowers with some leftover red and white felt and hot glued them down.  I think they look like fireworks kinda, don't you?

I also used some leftover Christmas ribbon to tie a bow above the loopy flowers and hot glued on a bunch of white buttons above that to complete the look.

I think it turned out pretty well.  I especially like how the red and white stripped fabric next to the blue and white polka dot fabric looks sort of like a flag.

I'm sure you all have much more sophisticated decorations than this for fourth of July, but with the move this is all I could manage.  So let me see what you've made for fourth of July!  Upload your crafty creations in the Flickr pool and I promise to show them off here for you. :)

Until next time, happy crafting!

--CC