Autumn wreath.

I love Autumn. The fall colors, hot chocolate, apple cider, pumpkins and all the wonderful desserts that come with them, scarves and jackets, everything. The season just makes me happy. It's a perfect pick-me-up for end of summer blues. In honor of this most blessed season, I crafted up an Autumn wreath. To be perfectly honest it will probably remain on our door for all seasons because I love it. And because it took lots of precious "nap time" hours to make.

My inspiration came from pinterest (surprise, surprise) from a cute etsy shop. I loved it so much, I wanted to recreate it.

source

So, here's my attempt:

Cost: $20

Tools:

1. Wreath - from Michael's on sale ($5) - use their online 40% off coupon!
2. One yard of natural Burlap - from Hobby Lobby ($4) - they have online coupons as well.
3. 4 cream squares of craft felt - from Walmart ($1)
4. Craft pearls - from Michael's ($4) 
5. Roll of Jute - from Michael's ($5)
6. Scissors
7. Hot glue gun and glue
8. Iron and ironing board

Time commitment: 4-5 hrs

To save bucket loads of time (seriously) check out this link and this link for the flower tutorials that I used. Of course, if you'd like to try out some different flowers, be my guest :) As I'm not a master seamstress, I avoid a needle and thread as much as possible (thank goodness they invented the hot glue gun for the sewing inept!). For most of the burlap and felt rosettes I used the second tutorial. You can also check out my pinterest craft page for more ideas :)

I started by making tons of felt and burlap flowers of different sizes and shapes. Be prepared to scald your fingers with hot glue! Sorry, I totally skipped out on taking any pictures of the process...but fortunately, it's pretty self-explanatory. Next, I arranged them on the wreath the way that I wanted them.

Mistake #1: I didn't take into account the way the wreath naturally hangs in balance. So once I got everything glued on, the wreath was hanging a little lopsided and I had to do some rearranging. So, be sure to check that you are decorating it in a way that it will hang in balance!

This is when you whip out your hot glue gun and go to town. I just started gluing everything and used almost three sticks of glue. There were some spots that seemed a little bare to me so I threw in some extra burlap or felt and glued it down.

You can see those "extra" burlap and felt ruffles in this photo.

Next I glued the pearls into the center of the burlap flowers.

Next, I made the "leaves on either end of the flowers as well as off the middle. I cut out two leaf shapes in the burlap and glued them together. Then glued them onto the wreath in what looked like the best spot.

For the folded leaves, I cut a yard strip of burlap about 2 inches wide. I folded it in half and ironed it to get a crisper edge. I cut the yard in half to get two different strips of fabric (one for the top and one for the bottom). I folded it in the way I thought it would look best and then glued all the ends together. Next, I shoved (literally) the end piece in between flowers the best that I could. I wanted to hide the edges that weren't so neat. Then I added a few extra pearls on those leaves!

Lastly, I added the jute to the other side of the wreath. I tied a knot on the back of the wreath to begin and just started wrapping it around and around and around. When I felt like it looked like enough, I cut the jute and looped the end piece under a few pieces of the wrapped jute on the back of the wreath and tied a knot. I threw some hot glue on there too, just in case.

Then I hung it up on our wreath hanger with a little bit of jute!

What do you guys think?

The next thing on the craft list is: Jackson's nursery bookshelf and wall decor and our hallway pallet bookshelf.