Easy DIY Christmas Yarn Wreath

Yarn wreaths are everywhere right now, and for good reason, they are easy to make DIY and low budget. I have a storage bin in my garage full of yarn that my husband is always nagging me to get rid of (along with my skinny clothes bin, which I am determined to open again someday) so I was ecstatic to be able to pull out the bin and show him that I am USING THIS YARN! This easy DIY Christmas yarn wreath cost me 9$. The styrofoam mold was 5$ (50% off micheals coupon), Red berries are on sale for 1$ and felt was 2$ (sale 4 for 1$) plus tax. I think it turned out really nice! A couple of my girlfriends came over and we had a wreath making party, aka.. girls drinking, crafting and gossiping night! See pictures of the crafting night at the very bottom of this post.

Materials Needed: 1 smooth surface wreath form, 1 skein of thick yarn at least 108yards (thinner yarns you will need 2 skeins), 6 sheets of felt (each sheet of felt makes 4 rosette flowers, or 1 large bunched flower, I got 2 sheets per color that I wanted to use plus 1 sheet of light green and 1 sheet of dark green for leaves), scissors, needle, thread and hot glue! (ignore the wooden O and the acrylic paint below, I ended up not wanting to do this in the end, although it might be a cute idea!)

*Tip* I suggest that you do not get the white rough styrofoam mold that I used. This was a huge mistake on my part since the yarn stuck to it and was hard to work with . I made it work but I suggest you learn from my mistake and get a mold with a SMOOTH surface. I would get one of these options…

 

 

 

1. Circle a loop around your mold and tie a knot, don’t cut the tail, you can just cover it as you wrap! Keep an out for for mischievous toddlers running around, they love yarn as much as cats! I was guarding my wine, my yarn, my wreath and the craft paper the whole time, sheesh.

2. Start wrapping the yarn around. This takes the most effort and is the hardest part because you have to try to keep the yarn pushed closely together. I suggest NOT wrapping too tightly and don’t worry if there are spaces, you will be going around twice and will fill in space the second time around. * Tip* don’t try to wrap extra close hoping to only go around once. You will need to go around twice.

3. Tie off the last part of the yarn and tuck it underneath other strands. Quickly hide your wreath from cats, dogs and toddlers while you make the flowers. Don’t make my mistake and allow your child to play with your wreath. Every day when we open the door she cries because she wants her toy down from the door. Mommy problems.

4. Now the fun part!! Flower making! This was super easy and fun. I wish I would have taken better pictures, I was busy guzzling wine and trying to distract Scarlett so she would forget how much she LOVES colorful felt flowers.

First I will show you how to do the larger bunched flower. a) use something circular and cut 4 circles out of your felt sheet. You will use up the entire sheet, each circle is about 1/4 of the sheet. b) Fold each circle twice c) sew the tip of your folded circle onto a scrap (ideally a square) of felt d) Repeat 4x so that all of the circles are stitched down in the middle e) fluff your flower so the petals come up! For no sew flower instructions visit SimplySalvage

 

Next flower that I did is a rosette which is REALLY simple, thats the main reason I used mostly rosettes on my wreath I had planned on doing all different types of flowers but soon realized that my wreath looked pretty awesome with what just the ones I had done already. a) Cut a circle, same size as you did for the first flower… about 1/4 sheet of felt. b) Cut a spiral around the circle. You can make this wavy if you want your rosette to look like it has petals, or just straight to make it look very simple c) Roll the spiral back up starting at the outer edge and working your way in. The “top” of the flower that will show on your wreath is the very outer edge of the circle, keep the bottom nice and flush as you spiral around as this is the part you will glue down. d) Stitch the bottom round part to the rosette making sure to stitch through all of the layers of the flowers so it all holds together

5. The leaves are really easy. a) Cut a petal shape keeping the bottom part straight b) layer the different colors c) fold the bottom in half and stitch through

6. Almost DONE! Next you need to hot glue on the flowers, leaves and berries to your wreath. I first lay everything out to figure out the amount of space everything will take. Then I glue on the berries, cut off the excess stem and then glue on the first set of leaves. I think it is best to work from top down so I don’t glue on the other leaves until I have almost all the flowers on. Next I glue on the flowers starting by covering the bottom of the leaves and then just placing them where I like. I find that it looks best when they are all pushed together very close. When you get to your last 3 rosettes then glue the leaves on first and THEN glue your last and final rosettes over the bottoms of the leaves.

 

DONE!!! Gorgeous!! Love! Oh wait, we still have to put a tie on it so that you can hang it from your door. I tied 3 pieces of yarn around the top and added a loop into my knot so that I had a little loop to hang on my nail. It is hard for me to explain this but I tried to take pictures to show you how I did it. Basically I took all of the string and made one huge knot. Before tightening the knot I took a long tail and tucked it back through the knot. Once I tightened the knot the loop was secured, then I knotted the end of the tail back around the entire knot to keep it extra secure. I’m sure if you play around with this you will figure out a way that will work. If you come up with a better way then I did it please comment and let me know!

Finished Product!!

Here are some of the pictures from our crafting girls night along with pictures of Dena and Valerie’s finished wreaths, they turned out awesome!!

Supplies are ready! Wine is open

Dena had some knot issues. Little Juliette was not exactly the best helper for this project lol, she was busy making more knots while Dena was taking them out. Nothing a little alcohol cannot fix. Sip, breathe, take out another knot.

My spot on the floor making rosettes amongst the mr. potato head parts that I was too lazy to pick up

Sanity in a glass.

Dena’s wreath turned out great, no rosettes needed. Just snowflakes (dollar tree store has tons, all colors and sizes!) and she had some silver whispy twigs from Michaels.

Valerie’s Christmas yarn wreath turned out fabulous as well. I love how she wrapped the contrast color around the top. We ran out of the dark yarn but no sweat she made it work and just sectioned off the bottom area where the flowers were going and used a different yarn on that part. Problem solved,