A Summer Wreath

For years I've had a goal of having a wreath for our door for every season. About twelve years ago I made one for Thanksgiving and that's as far as I made it with that goal. Well, about a month ago I made one for Canada Day, and today I made one for the summer.

I had fun making this wreath today. It's fairly simple, but I took pictures of the process in case you want to duplicate it. The original idea came from here. However, I made quite a few of my own tweaks.

I've been looking for a Styrofoam wreath for a couple of weeks. Finally I decided I would have to make the base. I recently found out that my second son has been saving up toilet paper tube and has quite a stash so I asked if I could have a few. I started squeezing and twisting them together until I had a reasonable circle shape. I figured it didn't have to be perfect since it's not going to be seen much.

Next I needed to cover it with some fabric so that the parts that peek out here and there don't look like a toilet paper tube. I went with a darker gray because of the colours in the paper that I had chosen. I cut the fabric into two inch strips using my pinking shears rotary cutting blade and started twisting it around the frame hot gluing the ends down.

Then I set to work making pinwheels. It would have been nicer if I had some double-sided paper, but I used what I had. I made one pinwheel from a ten by ten piece of paper and ten pinwheels from five by five papers. Then I glued a button in the middle of each - I love using buttons to decorate with.

Next it was just a matter of playing around with how I wanted to arrange them on the wreath. I hot glued them in place and added some ribbon for hanging it on the door.

Nice but it felt unfinished. So I went to the computer and designed a flower in my Creative Memories programme and put a verse on it. I printed it on scrapbook paper and made a stem and leaf. I attached it to the wreath - just what it needed.

 

 

What do you think? Do you decorate your front door?

 

 



It's Time!

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time for Spring.

I love looking at snow, watching my sons count up what they’ve earned from shovelling snow and even occasionally walking in snow. I like snuggling under a blanket and reading a book. I love cuddling wiggly bodies that are wearing fuzzy pajamas. I enjoy making hot chocolate for my children the old-fashioned way with milk, cocoa, honey and a little cream. I like the earlier darkness that makes everything feel warm and cozy in the house.

There’s something about knowing it’s cold outside that makes the smell of fresh-baked bread and cookies sweeter. There’s joy in watching your children play in the first deep snow of the season – the snow that reaches up to your toddler’s knees, and you let him go out even though it takes ten minutes to wrestle all his snow clothes on and you know after two minutes he’s going to hate it and want back in. There’s the fun of building snowmen and snow tunnels.

So I like winter until somewhere around February 1st when I magically want all the white stuff to disappear and the temperature to immediately rise to something you can go barefoot in.

But now it’s time for warmer weather, for an entryway not cluttered up by what seems to be 30 pairs give or take of boots and and coats, hats, mittens, scarves to match. It’s time for starting a garden, running around barefoot in the backyard, needing to remind my sons to mow the lawn. It’s time for eating outside, taking long walks after supper with my husband, planning our family vacation.

I’m ready to hang my laundry outside again. Oh, how I love the smell of air-dried laundry, and the sun makes my baby’s diapers so white again!I’m ready to go strawberry and blueberry picking and come home to gorge on the berries and freeze or dehydrate whatever I can manage to keep away from my children. I’m ready to go to the zoo where we have a membership but never seem to go much in the winter.

           So, yes. Winter you’ve been fun, but now it’s time for SPRING!