{Craft this}: Christmas button wreath.

I love wreaths - making them, putting them on doors. I've made several - a yarn one and then a grape vine one with rosettes a few weeks back. And I was getting the itch again. I had an available wreath form (the straw kind wrapped in plastic = cheap but don't remove the plastic!!) and some pillow-making supplies that never became their intended holiday pillow on hand and... as they say, the rest is history.

With my helpful pups by my side, I began working on it -

 First I took my green fabric and cut it into about 3 inch wide strips. I wrapped that around the form, adding more fabric as I went (think mummy wrapping. very similar). Then I glued the ends on the wreath and went about making my bow. I took another fabric, cut it into a 3 inch strip, and tied it into a bow around the top. I was left with this:

 I was actually pretty pleased with it but felt it was missing something. It could have stood as is but was just not outlandish enough for the holidays. After some careful thought and some playing with pups, I came up with a solution - buttons.

 I had a huge pack of red and green assorted buttons from said pillow project of years past. And so I laid out all the buttons and arranged them on the wreath. I didn't glue them until they were all where I wanted because I did shift them around quite a bit.

The hardest part of this whole project was probably the hot glue. I've always had a low heat hot glue gun because I'm not the most graceful and coordinated person. I invested recently in a high heat gun (it really does make a difference for crafting) and so as I was on the phone with my bff Beth in the ATL, I was cussing every so often as I burned my fingers. Let's just say I might be able to get away with some crimes because I probably burned my fingerprints off.

But the end result was worth it. Here she is in all her glory. Side note - I did hot glue the ends of the bow to the sides of the wreath so they stay perfect all the time. Tricky Tricky!

What do you think?

In buttons, bows, and burns,