A 4th of July special - When you get married, you start to like wreaths.

Oh hey there! It's been awhile. Moving is hard guys, don't judge me too much for my internet silence. :) I have a real treat for you today. But first! I have an update on my last post. I decided by ribbon wreath needed a little more "umph". You know. The type of thing that would make someone be like, "Oh that's so cute! Where did you get that?!" So I can brag and stuff. So here's my ribbon wreath plus a different hanger and an adorable wooden letter B.

I think it just really ties it all together. Don't you think? (This is where you just let me have my delusions, even if you think it's ugly, k? :) Thanks.)

I just used hot glue to attach the B to ribbon, and then tied the ribbon around the wreath. Super easy. The hanger wasn't quite as easy. That ribbon is really hardy so I thought it would be a good hanger. Which it is. But... Attaching it with hot glue wasn't cutting it. I tried that first, but it just couldn't take the weight. I shoved a teeny tiny nail through it into the foam of the wreath. So far, so good. It's been up for a day or so and it hasn't fallen off. I added a dot of hot glue on the head of the nail, just in case. 

I loved this Pinterest find before, and now I am even happier. Woohoo! 

Ok, here's the good stuff now. Apparently I'm a wreath person. I didn't know this until I got married. But I love wreaths! (Never thought I'd admit to that...) They're an easy way to decorate for holidays. Especially in my teeny tiny apartment that really doesn't have a ton of room for much else.

The 4th of July has never been a very big deal in my family. I guess we're bad Americans? No judgement guys. Holidays require a lot of work!  My hubby on the other hand, always did the same thing every year. And it's a BFD. (Big freakin' deal, for those of you who don't speak Taylor.) Like, I'm pretty sure that if we didn't spend it in his hometown the divorce word could come out. (JK, JK!) So I felt like I should get on the band wagon and get in the spirit of things. Pinterest didn't let me down! Here's the pin I found that I thought was awesome.

Link here. Funny, because she used a different pin as inspiration. 

I wanted to do this project as inexpensively as possible. I already had all the yarn on hand, so I just needed some stars, and a wreath. I went searching around my house. I had a giant foam poster thing I bought for a group project awhile back and didn't end up using. (AKA, I bought the wrong thing. Woops!) It has just been sitting around for awhile and I decided it was thick enough to  make a good wreath form out of. I really like that it's flat. It sits on my door better and it made it really easy to wrap. The only problem was getting the shape right. I got creative. :)

Why yes, that is a lid to a hamper and a dinner plate...

I also like this option because now I have the middle part to do another craft with if I want. 

I didn't like the idea of using so much hot glue and keeping the gun on the whole time I wrapped the yarn, so I just tied the strings together when I switched color.

This is the start. I just tied the string to itself to keep it in place.

The color switch!

My hubby is very particular about accuracy, so his input was that I should make it with 7 red sections, and 6 white. Fair enough. Gotta be patriotic AND educated! So that's what I ended up with. (He's still a little upset about the stars, 'cause "There aren't 50 of them! Or even 13 like the old flag!" My bad. I'm fired I guess.) The blue is a little smaller than I would have liked, but it looks good. Here's a tip for you. Since it's flat, you have to match the yarn up to the outside. If you line it up on the inside, you end up with spaces between the yarn. On a round wreath it doesn't matter as much because it evens out a little better, the flat surface made it so I had to pay more particular attention. Learned that one the hard way! I may or may not have had to basically redo about half of it...

There it is! For the stars, I was feeling a little less creative. I picked wooden ones up from my local Joann's and painted them white. I felt justified in this, because I still made the wreath for under $10. The stars I just attached with hot glue. While I was at the craft store, I saw the letters and picked them up on a whim. They're attached with fishing line, which I had on hand from this project. I tried to make sure you could see it in the picture, it's less obvious in real life. From start to finish, this wreath took about 2 hours. That with the $10 I spent, makes me feel like I rocked at being frugal AND crafty. Thanks Pinterest! It's a success!