Gift Wreath

For Christmas, I got my Sister-in-law a too small jacket- of course I lost the reciept and couldn't return it.  So... I promised to make up for it, I decided to make her a couple of things.  First I made her a tie scarf and sent it in the mail.  Then I made her a wreath.  A yarn wreath to be exact.  It's beautiful (if I do say so myself).  I love the yarn.  It's super easy to make and I think she liked it!

I used a straw wreath from Hobby Lobby.  I then wrapped it in batting (stuff you use for quilts).  I then wrapped it over and over with the yarn(from Michael's).  I took 1 yard peices of yarn and glued them onto the wreath.  The balls are small styrofoam balls (from Dollar Tree) wrapped in cream yarn.  It's attached with some ribbon.  Took me less than an hour.  It's so soft, I couldn't stop myself cuddling it....

Yarn Wreath

So I finally tried one of the 1,000 cool ideas I found online for Christmas ... this does not mean I have any of my Christmas presents finished... ha ha!

I found some really cool wreaths on all the crafty blogs I follow... but I thought I would like one of these yarn wreaths. I found tutorials here and here. I bought all the stuff to do this wreath from Polka Dots and Pizza... but I definately need to get my Christmas presents finished BEFORE I can start on this one!!

I decided to use a 10 inch straw wreath for 2 reasons 1) it was only $2.79 at Hobby Lobby, so if I didn't like it or never got to it this winter, I wouldn't feel so bad. 2) I wanted to go small so I could have time to finish it! I used Sugar 'n Cream cotton crochet yarn called Misteltoe (mostly because it was cheap and had all three colors I was looking for on 1 roll... red, green, white). Anyhoo... I really like how it turned out. :) I finally was able to finish it last night when my 2 year old had finally headed to bed and was actually STAYING in his bed!!

Things I learned from this wreath:

1. Thicker yarn might be more expensive, but it won't take as long to wrap! :)
2. The wreath needs to be covered before you put on the yarn- I saw someone use some batting. I think it would make it smoother, the straw sticks up and makes it uneven.
3. It's imporant that you look at the back to make sure you aren't overlapping the yarn, because it will leave gaps.
4. USE the GLUE GUN A LOT!!