Holiday Wreaths, Reused, Resurfaced Memories

Craft stores and holiday bazaars abound with beautiful home decor to beautifully decorate your home for the holiday season. But you can create your own work of art even if you don't believe yourself to be all that crafty. We all have an imagination, it just seems to get buried over the years with the load of everyday responsibilities leaving little time to revisit that part of us.

If you have a love for thrift shops, yard sales and bargain bins, try to get in the habit of collecting stuff for the "possibilities" of what can be done with it. You can often find wreaths you may not like as is, but they can be taken apart to reuse the base wreath.

This wreath started with one of those wire wreath frames. Wrapped around that frame is burlap that you can get on a roll. Wrap the burlap around the metal frame, overlapping the edges as you go and do it tightly enough to eliminate any bulges. Use a safety pin to secure the end or glue it down with a hot glue gun. What you do from there is up to your own creativity, but for this one I had one of those artificial berry garlands that are used to drape mantels and doorways. This one was about four foot long. I tucked the wire on one end under the gaps from wrapping the burlap and then wound the garland around and around the wreath and tucked the other end under the burlap as well. Add a loop of fabric or ribbon around one of the vines for hanging.

Plastic canvas is a fun needlework project that requires time and patience but once done, these craft projects are very rewarding to know you made it yourself. Digging them out at the holidays can bring back memories on what was happening in your life at the time you were working on them.
If you don't have time or interest in making your own, these little sewing creations can be found at craft shows and thrift shops. Someone put a lot of time and loving energy into creating these types of sewing kits and it is a shame to see them end up at a thrift shop. So if you can bring a new life back into someone's work that would be great.
The chickadee seen above on this burlap wreath had been a gift to my mother-in-law and holds a special place in our hearts now that it has been returned to us so many years later.

This wreath was another thrift shop recycle project. I bought the green wreath as it was and took off the trimmings it already had. I wrapped the whole thing with a 50 bulb string of the tiny white lights. Use the string with a bulb on one end and a positive plug on the other. If you use one of the end-to-end types of lights you'll have to hide the negative plug so it doesn't show.

Next, use whatever trimmings you have to decorate your wreath. A hot glue gun works great for lightweight balls, ornaments and ribbons. The Rudolph plastic canvas was done when my children were small and to now have it pulled out again and added to this wreath means it'll  bring back fond memories every year when the kids come home for Christmas.

So have fun and let your imagination soar as you decorate your home with a little piece of who you really are!