Clear Scraps Project Post

Hello Clear Scraps friends – a happy December to you all!  I just finished up decorating the house for Christmas, and after unpacking the decorations I realized I needed a new wreath for my door.  I shopped for quite a while but couldn't really find something I liked.  So, I did what any crafty person does – I decided to make my own!

I found a plain green wreath to start with and went to work deciding on some colors.  In this project, I chose to use the Large Expressions Believe and Holiday Wood Collection.

I wanted a wintery, but Christmas-y look and decided on some reds, whites and blacks as accent colors.  My first task was to paint the Believe Expressions acrylic phrase.  I am a huge fan of plaids, especially around the holidays.  To do this, I started by removing the plastic film on the front and back of the phrase, then began painting stripes on the backside of the phrase.

The first thin red stripes went diagonal in one direction and then crossed in the other direction.  I let this dry completely, then moved to making thin black stripes going in the same directions.

It helps to stick to the same pattern, so I kept my 2nd stripes off to the right of the first stripes.  Don't worry about them being perfectly straight or even on the paint.  It gives it a really natural appearance at the end.  The great thing about acrylic is if you don't like it, you just wipe it off with a wet towel!

As these were drying, I also added dots to the corners of each letter.  I dipped the end of a paintbrush into the paint, and made a series of dots.  It makes the cutest detailing!  These drops need lots of time to dry before the next layer.

Now, make a 3rd set of stripes, this time off to the left, with a thicker white stripe.  I then came back the other direction to cross over a final time.

It was time to decorate the Holiday Wood pieces next.  I chose to cut 2 Christmas trees with a pinking shears and decoupaged the fronts in a black and white checkered printed paper.

Once these were dry, I attached some poinsettia embellishments to the top of the trees, then hot glued these pieces together.

Next, I worked on the snowflake wood pieces.  These have a base coat in white, then were splattered with a black and red acrylic paint for a speckled look.  I also thought it would be fun to add some of the same dotted detail to the middle and ends of these, similar to the phrase detail.

To attach these pieces to my wreath, I took floral wire and weaved it through the end letters on the Believe phrase, then tied it in the back.  If this will be in an area with weather, I highly recommend sealing the back of the phrase with a paint sealer first.

I also attached the wood pieces to the wreath, but this time I took a tinsel ribbon and looped it a couple times around the wood pieces first, then tied them in the front and trimmed the ends.  I love the sparkle look this gives the wreath.

My final touches were some floral berry picks and a bow.  I also tied on a set of bells to the middle of the wreath as well.  I'm so pleased with how this looks on my door!  It was a project that only took a couple hours and it looks great.  Would you give a project like this a try?  I hope this inspires you to work on your holiday or home decor also.  I've listed additional supplies below, if you want to give it a try.  Thanks for stopping by!

Maureen

Additional supplies:  wreath, floral wire, hot glue, decoupage, acrylic paints, floral picks, wired velvet ribbon, large sleigh bells, floral embellishments.