Making a House into a Home: DIY Wreath

Since I am still renting an apartment, it makes it hard sometimes to feel like i am are coming home to...well my "home". Nothing matches, were using hand-me-down silverware, sitting on a couch that has been in Brent's parents basement since 1992 and we're def not wasting money on painting the walls because we'd have to paint it back white when we move out. To break it down even more, we are planning on moving out of here as soon as we can. BUT until that is possible, I am on a mission to make this place "homier".. is that even a word? Oh well.

This past Saturday was kinda dull so I decided to run to Michael's and see what I could pick up and throw together. As I was walking through the isles I saw styrafoam rings and I thought WREATH! I have seen them on pinterest and thought it would be fun and probably easy. I went and got 2 different colored yarn rolls, one tan and one cream/gold.. who woulda thought, right? I wasnt sure what else I wanted to add to it so I just browsed each row to see if something stuck out. I saw these mini branch wreaths and figured I could make it work. Last but not least I picked up a hot glue gun and some glue sticks and I went on my way.

Here is what I purchased along with an old grey shirt:

I started by hot gluing the tan strand to the ring and proceed to wrap it...

10 min later I was half way done...

Once I was finally done (took a lot longer than I thought because I wanted to make it perfect) I hot glued it to the same area as I started. Then I glued the cream/gold yarn to the same spot and wrapped it around.

yes... wearing the pj's again. I need a second pair

I am using the same start/end point for everything so I only have one place to cover up with my add-ons. I added another strand of the cream/gold but going in the opposite direction to create a crisscross effect.

I thought it would be cute to take the cream/gold yarn and roll it into different size balls and place them around the wreath however I pleased. All I did was make a bunch of knots and then just start rolling the yarn around it and glued the end when I got it to the size I wanted.

I played around with different layouts for the smaller wreaths and really liked how it looked when I placed them in the same area with a slight overlap effect. I made sure to place them in the same area as my start/end area so it would cover up the imperfections.

I thought the yarn balls would look cool inside the smaller wreaths so I made two small yarn balls and one larger one.

 Then I sat there and pondered what I was going to do to make it more interesting. I rummaged through some old t-shirts to see if there was anything I could use to make it look better. I found an old cotton/spandex shirt that I really never wore and decided to cut the sleeves off and make small roses. I have done this "rose" technique on scarves before and thought I could make it work for this.

Pardon my nails- Sunday is usually my mani day- I have terrible nails.. they are so thin and nail polish only lasts me like 2 days before they start to chip so they are usually completely bare by the end of the week.

As you can see, I cut the end part of the sleeve first. Then i cut a thin piece and cut it in half to make it long. I then just rolled it and glued it to stay together. I also put some glue on the bottom and rolled the material towards the bottom center to make it flat in order for it to be able to be glued to the wreath.

I then just randomly placed the flowers on and viola!! A masterpiece is created!!

I have done crafts here and there but this is my all-time favorite. I still can't believe how it turned out! I normally follow a pinterest idea or google an idea but this was all my own design and I love coming home and seeing it on the door.. it just makes me happy knowing I made it :)

This is just the beginning of my mission to make my small one bedroom apartment a home. What to make next???? hmmmmm