Guess what?!?! I need you. Yep, it's true. I've fought it off, tried to make it on my own, but I just can't do it and now...I need you. You, your crafty brain, your Christmas spirit, and your talented hands to make a Christmas related project and share it here at Love Sweet Love. Yep, I'm looking for guest posters!!!
For the week of Dec. 4th-10th I will be co-hosting Creating Christmas with The Girl Creative.
For the week of Dec. 4th-10th I will be co-hosting Creating Christmas with The Girl Creative.
Each day of that week a new Christmas project will be posted here on my blog-as well as all the other bloggers that are co-hosting this event-and at the end of the week there will be a HUGE linky party for you to link up all the Christmas projects you've been working on!
Now, I coooould do this all by-myself and post all 7 days, but I LOVE guest posting on other blogs and getting a chance to meet new friends, so I thought I would take this opportunity and open up MY blog for YOU to guest post on! Due to the traffic this event will bring, it would be a great opportunity for you to guest post during that week to shine a little light on your blog! (and I would REALLY appreciate the help!!!!)
The idea behind this event is to get out there and CREATE something. Don't just pin it, create it! Get OFF the computer and INTO the craft room (or closet as is my case :) )
If you're interested in helping me out and being part of The Girl Creative's Christmas week, shoot me an email at loveseweetlove@gmail.com and I'll get you more info!
Speaking of guest posting :), it was so fun to be over at Designer Garden and share my fall felt wreath tutorial, but before fall is OVER I thought I'd better share the tute here for all my Love Sweet Love friends! You know, just in case you get the case of the crazies and want to whip one up before all your guest arrive on Thursday. Buuuuut even if you don't have time to make a fall one, you can use this tute to make one for Christmas...wouldn't a red and white version be so FESTIVE!!!
As for me, I can promise you this....I am NOT making a Christmas one. After my Halloween one and this one back to back my little fingers need a scissors break. :) But I can also promise you there WILL be a wreath (or 2 :) ) making it's way onto my blog sometime during December so be ready for some wreath-luvin fun!
Fall Felt Wreath
When Sommer asked if I would share a tutorial on how to make this felt wreath, I had actually already finished making this one so I apologize that a few of these 'how-to' pictures are actually from my Halloween one because I didn't take very many step-by-step pictures of this fall one. BUTTT don't worry, the only thing that's different between the two are the colors of felt!
Ready to make your own?!?!
You'll need:
-Styrofoam wreath (mine was 15")
-approx. 3/4 yard of felt
-straight pins
-scissors
I first started by cutting out a 3" circle onto cardstock to use as a pattern to cut out all my felt circles.
***TIP: double, or even triple, up your felt when cutting to save time!***
You will cut A. LOT. of circles. Half way through you will want to give up, your finger will be slightly bruised from the scissors pressing on it over and over, and you will swear you will never use felt for anything ever again. BUT you'll keep going because you know how fabulous it will turn out (this is my 3rd one!!), because you'll stick in a chick flick to keep your mind off it and because you're slightly crazy and think it's cool to make something ALL on your own for cheap! Just a heads up. You're welcome. :)
Once you've cut your circles out, slapped on a band-aid, and eaten
1. Fold your circle in half
2. Fold it in half again (it should now be in the shape of a triangle)
3. Place a straight pin through the tip of the triangle
4. Fluff it up so you get maximum usage out of your circle and therefore can use less :)
Then insert pin into the styrofoam. No right or wrong way to do this, just repeat all the steps until your wreath is FUUUULLL of little, felt, flowery looking circles!
Awww, so pretty right?! Worth the time to cut out all those circles, fold, and pin them on? I think so ;)
And it really wasn't thaaat bad. I cut all the circles in one night (watching a few episodes of Biggest Loser-SOOO motivating; yet I find I usually watch it while a)eating ice-cream b)sitting on my booty crafting or c)talking on the phone) and then I pinned them all on the next night. That's do-able right?! Totally.
I'm very traditional when it comes to holidays and seasons, so I kept the colors for this wreath nice and warm and fallish :). Brown, red and gold. The one picture I found of the kind of felt flowers I wanted to use for this wreath led to an etsy shop so I had to figure out a way to make something similar...
This is how I made mine...
1. Cut out petal shapes from felt
2.Hot glue the bottom ends together to create the petal form
3. Snip off any excess felt so that all the petals fit *snuggly* together in the center of the flower
4.I cut out a circle of felt and glued each petal around the circle to create the flower
5. Make sure that all the petals match up together in the center and add a couple extra dabs of hot glue in the middle to secure
6.Repeat the step for a top layer of the flower (cutting smaller petal shapes) and add an embellishment to the center if you want-which you probably will because it will hide the hot mess of your glue.
Make as many as you want, and then I just used a little bit of hot glue to attach them to the wreath.
I really LOVE texture and dimension and height when creating projects so I love that the flowers give the wreath something just a little bit extra :).
ALSO...when your pinning your felt circles all around the styrofoam form, you'll want to make sure you fill up the inside, outside, underneath and top of the wreath with felt so that no matter what angle you're looking at it from you see felt! (the only place you don't have to worry about is the back)
It added just the touch I was looking for to complete my fall mantel! What do you think?!?! I hope you like it!! (and if it looks like my topiary is falling over it's because it totally is :). I think I made it a little top heavy...oops. )
Whew!!! That was a LOT of information! Thanks for stopping in today and checking things out! Talk to ya soon my lovelies!!!
