Introduction
In my Crafting 4 Christmas series needs to be at least 1 Christmas wreath that I will be crafting, right? So I have plenty of items to use to decorate it, but I didn't have an old wreath to re-decorate or replace the ring of a wreath to start from scratch.
Did you know that you can use an old clothes hanger for that? You can unfold these metal clothes hangers with a tool and bend it into a circle, there you have the basis of your own wreath. I haven't had one of these for years either, so this wasn't an option for me.
Yesterday I saw this cool post about a homemade wreath and decided to find a solution for my problem as I really want to create my own Christmas wreath this week. A normal household probably has some stuff in boxes they can go through and find some bendable items to use, but after our last move, I threw out most unused items.
Of course, I could have gone to a hobby store and find a metal ring to use for this purpose, but I didn't want to spend the money on it and wanted to see if I could create one myself costing about 0 bucks. Today I will show you how I managed to do this using a few items you probably have in your kitchen anyway. I will first share this part of the Christmas wreath with you as it will probably take a day to dry before you can start decorating it.
The instructions
We're going to make our own Christmas wreath using the paper mache technique. Cheap and probably you won't need to buy anything for this!
Some extra info is needed here, I read online that if you don't have any newspapers (which is the case here) a good alternative is kitchen paper, it was recommended because this was supposed to work great.
I believe this can be the case, but the combination with the flour/water "glue" technique wasn't great at all, so after one round I personally switched to old commercial folders from the supermarket, similar to newspapers, which worked like a charm.
I'm mentioning it to you at this stage because these aren't displayed in my image and I'd recommend skipping the kitchen paper if you have the option, to avoid the frustration I had.
Now the next messy part is something that I didn't manage to capture for this tutorial, simply because this is such a sticky mess that I didn't want to risk my phone getting covered in this mixture.
What you have to do is simple though, cover a strip of paper in the sticky mixture, and then remove the mixture from the strip.
This is highly important!
By letting it slide off the strip, your strip is sticky enough to use, and if you fail to remove the rest of the mixture from your strips, you will be waiting a long time before the first layer is dried. Meaning you can't continue with the next layer for a longer time.
I know these don't seem very interesting (yet), but they are perfectly fine to start decorating and make your own Christmas wreath! The branches/balls and other decorations used for those wreaths are mostly lightweight so this wreath base can carry the weight without any issue!
Of course, I will share the decorated wreath(s) in another part of Crafting 4 Christmas!
Previous Parts Of Crafting 4 Christmas
Part 1: Christmas tree from cardboard
Part 2: Felt Christmas tree ornament
Part 3: Christmas Card from cardboard and foam
Part 4: Felt Gingerbread man Ornament
Part 5: 3x Cinnamon Tree Christmas Ornament Tutorial
Part 6: Felt Elf Christmas Hat Ornament
Part 7: Sledge From Wooden Sticks
Part 8: Personalized Felt Star Ornament
Part 9: Owl Ornament
Part 10: Personalized Felt Star Ornament 2
Part 11: Santa Napkin Holder
Part 12: Upcycling a failed Craft Project
Part 13: 3x Cinnamon Santa Ornament