Wreath

Everyone is doing it. I know. I'm a joiner. Of course I had to TRY. But here's the thing. This is not the easiest craft everyone says it is. Seriously.

First you have to FIND a wire hanger. Thanks to a fantastic friend, and her NEED for wooden hangers, which turned into my NEED for wooden hangers, we had ONE wire hanger, in the entire house. And I'm pretty sure it was left here from a relative, because I found it in the guest room, in addition to about 345 plastic white hangers. Need a plastic hanger, anyone? Anyone? You won't once you go and get a crap load of these:

www.ikea.com  Bumerang, set of 8 for $3.99

On task, on task. Stay on task. I should list that as one of my favorite things. I think I will.

So, if you know me, I am a tiny bit OCD. Line-up-your-m&m's-and-eat-them-by-color-OCD. So, when I started this wreath I had to have a plan. I had no idea how many balls I needed, which totally bugged, but I went with it. Dollar store balls, and a few that I just had to have from Target and I finished with this:

So, I needed a plan - and I tried a few methods, big, little, medium...medium, big, little...until I found one that worked. It was big, little, medium.

But first, I spray painted the hanger, it was blue before:

Of course, this wasn't a regular hanger and it was thicker. Also, I had to wait for the paint to dry! Argghh. So impatient.

I also spray painted some of the balls because in the packs I got were some ugly brassy balls.

(Hey, there's that Give Thanks centerpiece again!)

So, I had to wait for those to dry too! So, paint then wait. Then glue the little hook piece of the ball to the actual ball. You really want to do this part! They pop off if you don't.

Then I wriggled the balls onto the wire, dropped a couple when the dog barked at the other dog, ran out to the garage grabbed a couple more from our tree collection and painted them. Waited for those to dry....wait, wait, wait....And that was it. You have to move the balls around and make things tight without breaking any of them, give it a little shake and a shove and there you have it. A gorgeous wreath. Swoon worthy. Not as swoon worthy as Edward....but, close...

If you look closely at the shiny silver balls you can see my reflection. I love that.

Does it compare?

Photo courtesy of Eddie Ross.

Oh, final note. Make sure that the door can close. Ummm....our wreath doesn't fit. Too fat. Can't close front door. The storm door gets in the way. Good thing we're safe in our little town, because I'm not taking this wreath off the door. Guess we'll have to sleep with the door open....