Rose Wreath

I saw this cute wreath in Woman's Day magazine and I wanted to make one:

You can find instructions on http://www.womansday.com/home/6-cheery-holiday-wreaths?click=main_sr#slide-2

I took photos along the way, but my memory card wasn't in my camera! My camera still took the pictures and pretended to save them, but didn't really. :(  All you get to see is my finished project, but I will describe to you an amazing trick that I learned and also give some advice if you choose to follow the Woman's Day tutorial.

I liked the Christmas wreath in the magazine but the colors were kind of limiting. I chose colors that would go with more seasons and holidays.  Here is my wreath:

Here is what I learned in the process:

1. Don't use yarn to wrap your wreath form. It takes FOREVER. Totally not worth it since you can't see it anyway. Half way through, I cut all of the yarn off and used strips of leftover felt instead. The felt was much easier to use to wrap the wreath form. It only took a couple of minutes, not a couple of hours!

2. Double check the prices on the fabric bolts whenever you shop for fabric. All of the "regular" felt was in one place together and it was all the same price. So I chose my colors and was on my way! When I got home I checked my receipt and discovered that one of the "premium" (ridiculously priced) felt bolts must have snuck into the "regular" section! So I paid a lot for one of my colors, which was unnecessary. I will always double check in the future.

3. The instructions say you need 3/4 yard of each color. Apparently this is not if your craft store sells 72" wide fabric. I used less than half of what I bought. So keep that in mind!

4. Put your husband to work cutting out the spirals while he sits in front of a football game. Your hand will hurt a lot if you do it all yourself.

5. And finally, the BEST TIP OF ALL, thanks to the Joann's employee who was nice enough to give me a tip that actually required me to shop somewhere else.  They were out of wreath forms, and she said not to buy them there anyway. She said to go to Home Depot, buy a 6 foot length of foam pipe insulation for $1, cut it to size, wrap it in a circle, and tape the ends together. Jordan also happened to have some PVC pipe that matched the size of the insulation, so we cut a 3" length of that to stick in both holes to hold the ends together before gluing.  It helped the form from going into an oval shape too. If you start fiddling with this idea, you'll see what I'm talking about. If you don't have PVC pipe, a pipe cutter, or a handy hubby, it's probably worth the few extra bucks to just buy a wreath form. (If they have it in stock.) Also, I needed more surface area for this project than the insulation strip was offering, so I had to make two circles of it to set inside each other. This gave me enough surface area for my roses.  Also, if you go with this method, beware of the glue gun. It does not mix well with the foam insulation. Extreme meltage.

Overall, I really like the Joann's employee's tip and I plan to use it again in the future. Wrapped in felt, not yarn! :)