Yesterday I had a day off from work and was in the mood to change up a few things around the house. Kids are starting to go back to school, it’s almost Labor Day and it is almost Fall. I was also in an organizing mood, so while out looking for storage baskets I came across these lovely deep red sunflowers and decided to make a simple DIY wreath for the front door.
Here is what I used:
- A foam wreath form (I used a 10 inch size)
- Wide and narrow burlap ribbon in a sage green color
- Sunflowers (artificial) – I also had some berry picks but decided not to use them
- Metal wreath pins
- A metal skewer
I started by pinning one end of the large burlap ribbon to the form. Since this will be wrapped over, only one pin is really needed.
I continued loosely wrapping and when I got to the end I used two pins to secure both ends of the ribbon. This will be covered by the flower when complete, so there isn’t any need to get fancy or elaborate.
Next I needed to figure out how long I wanted my narrow ribbon to be for the hanger. Yes, the colors of the burlap ribbons are not exact matches, but that is ok. The purpose of wrapping the form is to cover up the white. I could have used brown or another color burlap for the base, it really wouldn’t matter since the sunflowers will hide the form most of the way. The green will blend with the sunflowers nicely. For my hanger I just wanted a simple bow. If you want a fancier bow, allow for more ribbon.
Once I determined the length of ribbon for the hanger I pinned it on the underside to the form so that it would be kept in place and I would know where my top is. The sunflowers will be pinned through all layers, so you won’t see where the hanger ribbon joins the wreath when everything is finished.
Cut the sunflowers from their leaves and leave about an inch or two of metal stem attached. This will vary depending on the thickness of your wreath form. When cutting, make sure that your stem will not go all the way through your wreath.
Then, using the metal skewer, punch into the form and gently wiggle around to make a hole for the stem to fit through. When removing the skewer, remember where you punched your hole, as sometimes the ribbon closes up and it can be hard to find. If that happens, no worries, just punch another hole and move on. And be careful not to punch all the way through your form. You only need about half the distance of your cut stem so that your flower will be secured to the form.
Now just push your sunflower stem into the hole until it is secure in the form.
Continue adding sunflowers until your wreath is full. I alternated going in and out so that my sunflowers overlapped each other slightly all around the wreath. As I mentioned above, I also had purchased some berry picks that I thought I might use as filler but decided I did not need them once I had my sunflowers in place. The number of flowers needed will vary depending on the size of your wreath and the size of your flowers. My wreath took ten sunflowers to complete.
Once all the flowers are in you can fluff and adjust so that they fill out the form. And as you can see below, you cannot really see the wreath form through the sunflowers. The colorful sunflowers signal a new season is approaching…Fall, here we come!
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