My home is aching for some Valentine’s decor. Actually, I am aching to make my home more Valentine-y. It gives me a little outlet to bring out the girly-girl in me. Would you believe it? This project cost me zero doll hairs!
This is a nice scrap busting project that can be done in a couple of hours!
I first discovered how to make the wreath form/base from this youtube video from Hectanooga1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG8W_Yijzrg when I made a Halloween yarn wreath last October.
The possibilities in making these wreaths are wonderfully endless!
Here's how to make it:
Materials needed:
If you’d like to make your own wreath base/form:
• 2 paper or foam plates
•Smaller plate that will fit inside the paper plates. This is just used as a template.
•Pen or pencil
•White craft glue
•Scissors
• Plastic grocery bags or newspaper for filler
• Tape
For the wreath itself and the decorations:
•Wreath base (either the one you cleverly crafted yourself, or a store bought foam or straw one)
•Yarn! Various shades and weights of reds, pinks and lavenders. Let’s bust those scraps!
•Various sizes of crochet hooks. I used sizes F, G, I, J, K and N. Namely because those are the ones I could find.
•Glue gun
•Coordinating ribbon for hanging the wreath
•Baubles, pearls, buttons (optional for added pizazz)
To make the wreath base:
Taking the two paper plates and the smaller plate, trace a circle on the inside of the plates.
Cut the inside circles out of the paper plates. Use foam plates if you’d like your wreath to be able to stay outside.
Run a bead of glue onto the outer perimeter of one of the plates and sandwich the right sides together. Let the glue dry.
Stuff the cavity of the plates with plastic grocery bags or newspaper and tape the stuffing in place.
Your wreath for is ready to decorate!
To decorate the wreath, tie the yarn to the base and start wrapping.
There is no magical science (I like that oxymoron “magical science”) to it, just go around and around making sure there are no gaps and you can’t see the plates underneath. I used three separate strands for my project. I used a deep red velvety chenille, a hot pink fun fur, and another similar fun fur with other yarny bits coming out of it.
Experiment with what you have. This part can’t be messed up. Once the yarn has completely wrapped the form, tie it off and and tuck in the loose ends. Decide that where you tucked in the loose ends is the back of your piece.
Crochet a bunch of hearts using different size needles and yarns. The pattern I used for my crocheted wire heart earrings is the same ones I used for these hearts.
It's basically this: Ch4, treble crochet in the 4th chain from the hook. In the same space - 2 tr, 3 dbl, ch1, 1tr, ch1, 3 dbl, 3 tr. Ch 3 and slip stitch into that same space. You can crochet two strands together using a larger hook and you’ll get different sized hearts. When you complete a few, place it on the wreath and play with the placement until it pleases you. You can be quite minimalist or go with the ”more is more” approach. Add buttons, pearls, and shiny baubles to your heart’s content.
Hot glue everything down.
Tie a length of ribbon onto your wreath and hang.
Valentine yarn wreath realized! Enjoy!
I had trouble on my previous post in putting up more than one picture, so if you need a visual on the whole process, you can go to my blog:
http://craftycoup.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/valentines-yarn-wreath/
