Now that I have finally made a Christmas Ornament Wreath I have vowed never to make one again, or at least not anytime soon.
I really have wanted to make a Christmas ornament wreath for years. So when a couple of friends admitted they wanted to make one too last December, we made plans to get together in July to enjoy some Christmas in July crafting and finally make our own Christmas wreaths for our homes.
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After Christmas last year, we all shopped clearance sales for extra babbles and ornaments to get ready to make this wreath in the middle of the summer heat wave. Who doesn’t love making Christmas crafts in July?
A few weeks before our planned crafting day, I purchased several foam and straw wreath forms, extra hot glue and burlap ribbon. I even spent an afternoon watching videos on all the best ways to make an ornament wreath.
On a very hot day in July, the three of us met at my house where I had set up extra tables in my sunroom along with extension cords and supplies. We were ready to make this happen!
An hour later, we were all frustrated, realized we still didn’t have enough ornaments and had burnt fingers. Making this type of wreath was not as easy as we thought it would be.
Still we persevered and by the end of the afternoon we at least had most of the ornaments attached to our wreaths and had gained an education on what not to do. We also realized there were some some extra supplies we still needed like tinsel and more shatterproof ornaments would come in handy.
None of us actually finished our own wreaths that day. Mostly because we all needed more ornaments or tinsel in our chosen color schemes. But we have talked about our progress since then and each of us have found what we needed at thrift stores or craft stores to finish our wreaths before this Christmas season.
A few things we all learned while making our first (and probably last) Christmas ornament wreaths.
Glass ornaments don’t stick well to a foam wreath form without burlap wrapped around it first.
Glass ornaments also don’t stick well to straw wreath forms but at least better than the foam ones.
There will be gaps showing between the ornaments.
Shiny tinsel helps to fill those gaps.
Ornaments will fall off. Lots of them.
Hot glue sticks to your fingers better than the ornaments.
The ornaments don’t stick to each other very well either.
It takes lots of hot glue to make this type of wreath.
It takes more ornaments than you can imagine to make this type of wreath.
This is still a great project to use up your old supply of ornaments, but if there is a next time, we will all buy shatterproof ornaments.
Spending the afternoon with friends crafting, laughing over the struggles, and just enjoying time together was worth it!
That is what is post is really about. Spending time with friends, making something creative, and just enjoying the process. This is also why you won’t see any of the in-progress photos while I was making this wreath. The afternoon was more about spending time together and not about making a picture perfect wreath for my blog.
If you are a blogger, I want to encourage you to take time just to do something creative, but not for your blog.
My cross stitching habit has always been more therapeutic than about what I can share online. And there are so many projects I complete around my house for the same reason. I will always need a creative outlet whether my blog readers ever see the finished project or not.
Am I tempted to share all of the projects? Of course. But I also don’t want to sit in front of my computer 100 hours a week doing all of the blogging stuff either. It can be exhausting and zaps my creativity and energy along the way.
My message for you today is, go do something creative that you have always wanted to do, even if it doesn’t work out. You will still learn something new and get a chance to recharge for a few hours.
Eventually I did finish my wreath in late summer. I got lucky and found just the right color of blue tinsel at my mom’s house while my sisters and I were cleaning some things out of her house. That little touch is just the right sentimental memory to add to my Christmas ornament wreath.
The wreath has still been a bit of a struggle to deal with.
Every time I have moved this wreath around in my craft room since July, more ornaments have fallen off and shattered. It will be on display this Christmas in my home so it should be interesting to see what happens while it is hanging up.
Even with all it’s imperfections and frustrations, I am still going to hang up this wreath for Christmas and smile when I remember the hours that myself and two other creative friends spent together on hot summer day creating Christmas ornament wreaths.
Hugs,
Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart celebrates, and I give thanks to him with my song.”
Oh my goodness, this did make me laugh! So many “brilliant” ideas end up like this when it’s just not as easy as people make out!
Your wreath is beautiful but you know what? I’m not in a hurry to make one now!
My friend bought some heat proof gloves, I think they are meant for hairdressers and she gave me as you really only need one hand protected to use a glue gun! It’s actually really good as I too find that hot glue prefers fingers to pretty much anything else!
Thanks Julie. I haven’t heard of those but will ask my daughter who is a hairdresser.
It is a beautiful wreath! In a sense, I have felt the need to try my hand at creating one of these over the years, but now after reading this, I’m second guessing that. HAHA!
I am glad I finally tried to make one, but if I ever try again I will definitely be more prepared – and have shatterproof ornaments! Thanks for compliment.