Wreaths!

So I was bored last weekend and couldn't sleep, so I thought about how I've always wanted to make a Christmas wreath, but it's summer. Then I was like well hey, an everyday/year round wreath would be a cool decoration to personalize the outside of my apt more. This particular one I made for a friend who loves animals, esp cats.

Materials:

foam wreath
yarn
hot glue gun
decorations (letters, numbers, flowers, etc.)

Instructions:

At the starting point, hot glue a piece of string to one side of the wreath. Press it down and make sure it's stuck. Then, begin wrapping the yarn in/out of the wreath.

This is a pretty long process (I used a 16" wreath and it took 3-4 hours) Once you've covered all of the foam, hot glue the end of the string to the wreath.

Now it's decoration time! For this one I used a bouquet of flowers (got them for 95 cents at Walmart) and cut the flowers from the stem. Make sure not to cut it too short though, because you're going to use the wire from the flower to stick it into the wreath. You could always hot glue it, but if you just stuck the wire into the foam you can always exchange it with different flowers as the seasons change.

I also painted some letters to add. The letters, however, I hot glued down.

And that's it! It's fairly easy (wood wreaths would be faster to make since the yarn wrapping is skipped and you just decorate it) and really thoughtful as a house warming gift.

I became a little obsessed with it so I'll prob have an overstock of wreaths lol. I plan on selling them either locally or on etsy. So look out for them!

Adrienne J.

Cut Out Shirts

I saw a shirt on Urban Outfitters with a skull shape cut out on the back, and I really wanted, but didn't feel like spending $40 on something I could probably do myself. Here's what i came up with.



(This is UO's)



Materials:

shirt (the material of the shirt can make it harder or easier to cut, cotton=hard; modal=easy)

box cutter (or scissors)

pencil (optional)

cardboard (optional)

Instructions:

First, lay the shirt down flat, and insert a piece of cardboard inside to prevent cutting through to the other side of the shirt.

Use the pencil and mark out what it is you want to cut. (For the skull shirt, or for a less structured design, just start cutting and do not mark where you will cut.  Sometimes random, less neat designs looks best.)

Grab your box cutter and start cutting away the holes

That's it!

(this is the back of the shirt, it was just hard taking a picture of my back so I put the shirt on backwards)

Cool idea for all those old family reunion shirts you have in the back of your closet.

Adrienne J