Valentine Wreath

Cold weather and the lack of sunshine leads to a couple of things- a) major sugar indulgence, b) cabin fever, and c) the crafting bug.

While blog-hopping the other evening, I found a crazy idea for this wreath over at the Tatertots and Jello website.  (Ok, so it's an odd name for a craft blog, but whatever.  Maybe if I were more of a crafty person, perhaps I would understand.)

I have always been a little envious of other women's abilities to beautifully decorate their homes, and have decorations for each holiday and season.  And then not having their cute stuff disappear behind other stuff (ie, the pens and papers a husband empties from his pockets and leaves on top of the entertainment center, or the mountains of dirty clothes, school papers, Polly Pockets, Legos, clean laundry and crumbs that seem to accumulate all over) like at my house.  Visions of the displays at the craft store float around in my mind and I think, for a short moment, surely I could do something cute like that. 

The next day I drug (Er, maybe that's not the right way to say it.  There were no drugs involved, just a whole lot of crying and fighting over who got to hold mom's phone) dragged the twins to the store to buy the supplies to turn the charming vision into a reality. 

I found the 12" wreath form ( later used as a hat or a weapon of sisterly abuse), $4 worth of Valentine cupcake liners (which can be sat on and still be usable) and then made my way over to the ribbon aisle.  Ribbon can be very pricey when you need large amounts, so imagine my excitement to find 60 yards of red ribbon on clearance for $1.49.  Score! 

That afternoon, after I got the twins down for their nap, I found my old friend the glue gun and got to work.  Thinking the wreath should be pretty self-explanatory, I didn't bother looking up the directions again.

Imagine my surprise at learning there was a reason for that particular ribbon to be so value priced.  If you so much as breathed on it wrong, it creased.  Good thing I was going to cover it.  

An hour later, when I was thoroughly tired of folding cupcake liners and burning my fingers in an attempt to make those liners stick to my ribbon-covered wreath form, I picked off the last of the hot glue cobwebs.  Ta da!  It was done.

(Do you like our coffee filter snowflakes that are also on the door?  We are nothing if not classy.)

I realized that my wreath didn't quite look like the one in the picture.  Mine was a little more... funky.  That's when I checked the craft blog and realized I was supposed to "bunch the liner up at the bottom by pressing all of the side together like a flower" and not fold them into quarters. 

I guess mine is "original" and "has character."  Right?