Welcome Spring Wreath

I love to change the wreaths on my front door often. Each season provides a different theme, but you can also create wreaths for all the holidays in between as well as any other day that needs celebrating! I needed a new Spring wreath though, so that is the direction I went.

These are the digital files I used to create my wreath. You can get the same digital kit I used from The Digi Chick shop, or you can use whatever you like, there are so many beautiful kits to choose from!

My project started with a hideous wreath covered in tacky plastic flowers I got from the thrift store for $1. The first step was to obviously strip the wreath of those awful blue and yellow flowers. After they were gone, I could begin to envision a new life for my rescued wreath.

I started off by trying to decide where to place the items on my wreath. I made a few t-shirt flowers a few weeks ago to decorate a wreath but decided I needed something more besides them. When I found the Sweet Birdhouse Template, the image started to form in my head. I printed out the birdhouse and part of the banner on scrap paper to figure out sizing and placement. I also added the t-shirt flowers here and there.

The templates I used are so easy! I have a Silhouette Cameo on my wish list so that I can really enjoy the ease of the cutting files but for now I just open the files in Photoshop Elements. To use the files, just open up the .psd file in Photoshop. Then you choose which papers you want to use and clip them to the layer you want. All of the digital elements came from the Fun in the Sun Digital Kit.

For the banner I chose two papers for each ‘triangle’ of the banner. One paper was clipped to the actual triangle, the other paper was clipped to the round mat from Summer Days Paper Mats. Then I just added it as another layer to the banner file. Each letter of the word Spring was added to a different banner file. After I had all the files transformed with the papers I wanted and saved, it was time to print.

I printed the birdhouse template files out at actual size and the banner files as 3.5″x5″. They fit 4 to a page that way and were sized just right for my wreath. If you would like to download a printable copy of the banner I created, click here.

After printing the files out, I took out my trusty old school scissors (which I keep hidden from everyone in the house so they don’t get lost!) and went to work cutting out the pieces for the birdhouse and the banner ‘triangles’. It didn’t take that long, my hand was only cramping a bit by the time I was finished.

This is the point where the wreath really started to come together. I started with the Sweet Birdhouse Template and Cutting Files by scoring, folding on the lines and putting my bone folder to good use. A bone folder is pretty much a necessity when you want a really crisp fold. It came together so easily after all the folds were made.

I used Mini Glue Dots to hold the birdhouse together and the roof on top. The banner was even easier to make. The hardest part was choosing which ribbon to use to string the parts of the banner together. I used my Exact-o blade to cut a small slit on each side of the ‘triangle’ parts and then just weaved the ribbon through.

The last step for my wreath was to add some paper roses. These were created with the Paper Roses cutting files. Again, I used Photoshop Elements to make them. I opened the .psd files and all the digital papers from the Fun in the Sun Digital Kit. I clipped one digital paper file to each rose file until I had used them all. I printed a few out at the original size, but decided that I wanted some flowers to be larger for more of an impact on the wreath. That is easy to do in Photoshop also! I printed them out in varying sizes, changing the digital papers I clipped to the rose as I changed the size of the roses. I ended up with 15 paper roses. After printing them, it was back to my scissors. By the time they were all cut, my hand was really hurting!

At this point I was beginning to wonder how those corkscrew shapes were going to turn into roses. Again, these cutting files are so easy to use! After my hand had recovered from cutting them all out, it was time to transform them into roses. You start by grabbing the end with the point and rolling it away from you, so that you will see the blank underside of the paper. This seemed wrong to me, but trust me, this is the way. My original thought was to roll it the other way so that the beautiful printed paper was on top, but nope – trial and error showed me the truth!

As you are rolling the paper, try to hold on to it fairly tight so that the end result is a beautiful bloom. When I got to the end of the corkscrew, I just added a tiny bit of tape to hold the bloom shape securely. This is not 100% necessary, the nature of the rolled paper will hold itself in the basic bloom shape. After I made a few, I decided to try to roll one a bit looser to see what would happen, the result made me think of a rose that has opened up instead of the new bloom, but still just as beautiful!

The last step was figuring out placement of all the components of my wreath and using hot glue to secure them to the wreath. I also decided to add a little bird that I dug out of my stash of crafty supplies. I think he adds a great touch of whimsy.

That’s all there is to it! I would love to see anything you create if you were inspired by my post! Upload it to our gallery and send me a message so I’ll be sure to see it!

Welcome Spring Wreath

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