A Not So Christmas-y Ornament Wreath

I love all the different kinds of wreaths out there. From coffee filter wreaths to felt wreaths (I want to try this one year!) to ornament wreaths, there are so many options! 

Although Christmas has come and gone, it doesn't mean you can't still make them!

I made this one for my niece's 100 day celebration:

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I love how it turned out! It was a bit of an uncertain process but all in all it was a success.

Word to the wise: Attach your ribbon FIRST! Before adding any ornaments, make sure you do this. Or at least consider how you're going to hang the wreath. After the wreath was done, I had to shimmy a ribbon between the ornaments using a skinny stick- not a great idea. 

I wasn't able to find a reasonably priced styrofoam wreath in the size that I wanted so I settled on this from Michaels. Using my 40% off coupon, it cost about $5.

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Of course I had to cut out the donut in the middle but that was not big deal especially since the ones already pre-cut were about twice the price. 


Now it was time for the ornaments! I started my shopping for the decor right before Christmas so I found a lot of good deals! 


These paintable ornaments were 1/2 off at Deserres. $8.49 for 39 assorted sizes. Sold!

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With some pink, silver and white spray paint, these were ready to go! 
It sounds easy enough but spraying round objects can be quite time consuming. I hung them on a wooden dowel I had lying around and did many light coats. Sometimes the paint would run and cause unsightly streaks and bubbles... It's important to keep the coats really light and dry fully between coats. I tend to be too impatient AND I have a heavy hand...but I'm working on that. =)


THEN, I flipped them over, stuck them into the left over styrofoam and sprayed the bottoms. 

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See all the imperfections? Don't fret. Just keep doing light coats...I think it took about 4-6 coats to get them to look like this:

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A lot more bubble gum pink than I wanted, but that's okay!


Now comes the fun part! Take off all the metal tips and starting with the largest ornaments, hot glue gun them to the wreath.

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Then keep going down in size. You'll use the smallest ornaments at the end to cover any holes.

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So by now I was getting worried for 2 reasons...
1) I've already used half the ornaments...I even made the donut large to reduce the amount of ornaments needed.


2) This didn't look anything like this:

Source

It didn't even look like a circle...but I just kept at it. It would all work out in the end right?


But before I could do anymore, I went out and got more ornaments. This wreath was adding up...


Luckily I found these great little ornaments at Michaels. Originally $8.49... on clearance for $1.49! All they needed was some spray paint... Can you tell I love spray paint? They actually had silver ones but they weren't on sale. =(

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These were easy to spray paint. What I was dreading was having to spray paint another 35 ornaments... (Even thought they come in white, they were a translucent cheap plastic that definitely needed a coat or two of white paint).


On a whim I dropped by Superstore and lo and behold I found these babies:

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They were all marked down to just $3 each. I love the variety of silvers and all the different textures these were going to give the wreath in conjunction with the ones above. 

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I love how it turned out! 

I was worried that I didn't have enough pink ornaments, but since the pink is SO bubble gum pink that a little goes a long way.

I think I'll make this type of wreath for my sister next Christmas to replace the coffee filter wreath I made for them this year!


The total cost of this was about $30 and that accounts for all the ornaments, the styrofoam base, hot glue gun sticks and spray paint.

Looking at Etsy, they cost about $50. So you're not saving a whole lot by making it yourself when you also consider the time it takes to make it.. but it's fun to make and you can amaze all your friends and family by saying you made it yourself!