Sometimes you have to take projects in steps and that I exactly what I did with my gift exchange craft project.  If you remember I talked about making a homemade gift for my family Christmas gift exchange here, where I described how I made the first part of my project the felt flowers.  The second part is this yarn covered wreath to which I attached the felt flowers.

The wreath part of the project is actually really simple, but a little time-consuming. I literally worked on it a couple of night in front of the TV.  All I needed for this part of the project was a styrofoam wreath and a skein of gray yarn.  This was the first yarn wrapped wreath I have ever made so not knowing how much yarn it would actually take I purchased 2 skeins… haha, turn out it takes less than one! I started by finding the start of my skein and glued that to the styrofoam with hotglue. Leaving it attached to the skein I just started wrapping the wreath by looping the skein around and around and around, there was lots of wrapping.  At some point I am pretty sure I was literally throwing my skein of yarn through the middle of my wreath, on to my lap, picking it up and throwing it through again. Time-consuming like I said.

I was not too concerned about getting the yarn lined up perfectly as I wrapped, I just wanted to make sure that I got good coverage so you could not see any more of the styrofoam.  I did try to hold the string of yarn tight as I tossed the skein through, so that it did not get too crazy looking. But mostly I just wrapped and tossed and wrapped some more. Once my wreath looked like it was all yarn I did one more layer, this time paying closer attention to where the yarn landed as I wrapped and being sure to pull it tight. Once the last layer was completed I just cut the yarn and secured it down with more hotglue.

Now for the fun part, attaching the felt flowers. I decided to put the larger flowers in the center and then place smaller ones on either side. I simply covered the back in hotglue and then placed the flower on to the wreath, making sure the first flower covered the spot where I had hotglued down my yarn.

I continued gluing until all my flowers were places. Added a ribbon and called this project finished.

Being that this was the first wreath that I have ever made I was pretty happy with how it turned out. It may be the item I try to win in the gift exchange. It is not weird to try to win your own gift back, is it?

Update: I shared this post!! There are some pretty awesome bloggers out there that host link-up parties and I took full advantage by sharing my post; here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here , here, here, here , here and here. If you found us though one of these link parties, well welcome to our blog, and leave us a comment telling us who sent you so we know who to thank!  Also, go check out some (or all) of these blogs they are all pretty great!

Also: I have submitted this project to the Creating with the Stars competition over at East Coast Creative. While I am sure I will not even be considered as a participant/finalist, I thought it was worth a try. Be sure to head over and check out their blog and all the other amazing submissions. There are some really great projects linked up!