Difficulty: Beginner
Now that summer is in full swing I decided that I wanted to change out my Dollar Tree Spring Wreath for a summer one. A patriotic wreath would be nice with the 4th of July right around the corner, but then I started thinking that I didn’t necessarily want a patriotic wreath for the whole summer. If I made a patriotic wreath would I only use it for a short amount of time? Then I came up with a solution. Make the wreath reversible and it can take me all the way through the summer.
I know, this isn’t exactly a huge dilemma that I solved, but nonetheless I was pleased with the idea of a double sided wreath. Why didn’t I think of this sooner. If all of my wreaths were reversible I could significantly lessen my trips to the attic throughout the year to fetch one and put away another. It’s the little things, right?
Anyway, I started thinking about how I could make the wreath reversible. A flat wreath seemed like the best option to easily decorate both sides and not have one side’s decorations interfere with the other. Then it came to me while I was hanging my laundry on the line (yes some times I hang my laundry in the summertime) use clothes pins.
Clothes pins on a wreath isn’t a new idea. I’ve seen it plenty of times before, but I’d never seen a reversible one. I was onto something here. I could figure out how many clothes pins I needed to make a wreath and decorate one side in red, white and blue and the other side as something else. What was that something else? How about a watermelon?
Watermelon is the quintessential summer fruit and lots of people decorate with watermelons, plus they are round. The shape lends itself really well to a wreath, so with my idea formed it was time to get to work. I actually had everything that I needed already, but you can grab all of your supplies at Dollar Tree except for the acrylic paint, but you can grab a few small bottles of acrylic paint at the craft store for about a dollar each as well. Gather your supplies and I’ll walk you through the steps to create your own reversible summer wreath.
Supplies
Foam board or card board
Clothes Pins ( I used 67 you may need more or less depending on the size of your wreath)
Hot glue or craft glue
Small star stickers (15-20)
Acrylic paint (red, white, blue, black, dark green, light green) and Polycrylic to seal it
Your choice of ribbon
Small paint brush
Brand new pencil with un-used eraser
Painters tape
Tutorial
Take a round dinner plate or a large mixing bowl and trace around the edge to create the shape of your wreath.
Cut out the circle and trim away the middle of the circle. You will fine tune the inner circle in just a minute. Arrange your clothes pins around the outside of the circle evenly and tightly spacing until the whole circle is covered. Trace the inside edge of the clothes pins all the way around the circle. Then remove the clothes pins and cut along the line to form the final shape of your circle.
Set aside a portion of the clothes pins to create the blue portion of the flag side of the wreath. I set aside 10 clothes pins, but you may need to set aside more or less depending of on the size of your wreath. Decide whatever looks good and go with it.
Split the remaining clothes pins into two equal piles and arrange into two rows. Paint one row with two coats of red and one row with two coats of white allowing 10-15 minutes for dry time between coats.
Paint remaining clothes pins with two coats of white and let dry.
Randomly place star stickers all over the smaller portion of white clothes pins.
Paint two coats of blue.
Immediately remove stickers. Try not to let paint dry completely before removing the stickers or the paint may peel upon removal.
Once the red white and blue clothes pins are all dry flip them over and arrange in two rows with the clips all pointing down. Place a long strip of painters tape along the length of one row of clothes pins roughly 3/8″ from the top. Be sure to seal down the edges.
Paint the top edge dark green with two coats of paint.
Once dry remove the tape.
Make sure the rows of clothes pins are lined back up and apply the tape about 3/8″ from the bottom of the dark green or if you have a steady hand just eye ball painting the light green stripe. If you are worried about ruining the straight edge from the dark green you can place a piece of painters tape on the edge of the dark green to protect it.
Once the light green has dried paint the remainder of each clothes pin with two coats of red.
Once the red has dried you can add the seeds.
Take the pencil and dip the eraser in black paint.
Create seeds on the red with the eraser. You can create a pattern with the dots or place them randomly. Whichever you prefer.
While you are waiting for the black dots to dry paint one side of the foam board circle red.
Once the foam board circle has dried flip it over and paint a portion of it blue roughly 1/4 or 1/5 of the circle. Once the paint has dried you can arrange the clothes pins on the foam circle. Arrange the wreath with flag side showing, making sure to place the blue clothes pins on the blue portion of the circle.
If your wreath will be outside and could possibly get wet you will need to apply polycrylic to give it a protective seal. You can get a spray can in any finish you like and spray two to three coats on each side waiting 30 minutes between each coat. This step is optional, but recommended if there is a chance the wreath could get wet.
After all of the clothes pins have been arranged and the polycrylic has dried decide where you want to place your ribbon. cut a length of ribbon long enough to hang your wreath. You can use a double thickness of ribbon or single. Whichever you prefer. I used scrap ribbon and only had enough length to do a single layer of ribbon.
Remove the clothes pins from the wreath where you will be attaching the ribbon and add a bead of glue. Press the ribbon into the glue.
Flip the wreath over. Add another bead of glue and press the ribbon into it.
Replace the clothes pins and tie a loop in the end of the ribbon to hang from your hook.
Display the flag side for 4th of July week and possibly Memorial Day and even Veteran’s Day
and the watermelon for the rest of the summer.
This is a great project that your kids can help with if you don’t mind a little mess. Though my kids just wanted to use the paint to make pictures, so they didn’t actually help me with this project, but we were all painting together, so that was fun.
Give this project a try and let me know how it turns out and have a great 4th of July!