I Craft....Therefore I Am

So it looks like #3 won. Dang....I had high hopes for the paisley :} Oh well, save that for another day. I'm pretty impressed with the results and I can say that my efforts were not a fail :} So if you are inclined and have a couple of extra ties lying around, have at it. I put together a little tutorial on how I made this wreath.

 

As u know, the first step for indecisive me, was taking a poll to help me decide which ties I wanted to use. The second step, was deciding which tie got to be dominant. So I made them all arm wrestle....which is how I like to settle most disputes, and the tiny lil check tie won :} Which surprised me, cuz I full expected the polka dot tie to take the prize, since it was the whole reason I needed help deciding in the first place....go figure.  Seriously though, I'm a visual person, so I just took mock up pics to compare. I always suggest doing this, if possible. There's nothing worse than spending time and brain cells creating, all to end up with something you don't really love. But I do wish I had that kinda time to play with :}

 

Once you have decided which tie you want to use to wrap the base, it's time to dissect them all. Take your seam ripper, open em all up and remove the thick batting from the inside. If you are familiar with deconstructing things, it will be almost humorous to you how easy this task is. If only all things were...lol. Get rid of all the pesky lil threads hanging around and cut off the lil tags. When your done, they should look like this.....

 

Now put aside the 2, or however many you are using, for the rosettes or embellishments. Completely iron out all the folds from the tie you are using to wrap the base. You will need every little bit of fabric to completely cover the base with one tie. My wreath form measures 11 1/2 inches across. Not sure of the exact size, due to the Pop Tart ripping off the tag. You could always use a smaller form or even 2 different ties, but of course I wanted to use only one tie. It took me about 5 times wrapping the form to figure out I had to completely iron out the tie and that I was going to have to really stretch the fabric as much as possible, to make the fabric reach. Once you have ironed the tie out, you want to iron in a very small fold along one side, to have a clean edge as you wrap. I tried it with the frayed edge also, and it didn't look bad at all, I just wanted a cleaner look for this wreath. And when you're done with that, it will look like this.....

 

Now, you want to wrap the base, starting with the small end. Remember, you need as much of the fabric as possible, so line up the seams as close as you can as you wrap. I hot glued along the way to keep things in place, but you could probably use flat head pins also, and it would work just as well. When you get to the wide end of the tie, things will start to get scrunchy and you have to start stretching and smoothing the fabric, and then tacking it down and out of the way as much as possible, with the hot glue. This is the part of the wreath I attached the rosettes to, so it disguises it any way. Just get it as uniform and flat as you can. And this is what you end up with.....

 

 

I'm not going to go into detail on the rosettes. There are probably a million tutorials online on how to. But I will offer some tips for using the ties. The fabric is thick, even with the insides removed and if your not careful, your rose will grow upwards and not out, so try to be conscious of keeping the base of it as flat as possible. I used hot glue to assemble mine for this project, but have sewed previous rosettes with needle and thread. The hot glue is wayyyyyyy easier, but I am insane about hiding the evidence of hot glue and if you're the same, then just be careful and glue as close to the bottom as you can, so that you don't see the glue in the petals. Here are my lovely rosettes. I used all of the blue tie and most of the polka dot tie, to make them....

 

I knew from the start, that when completed, it was gonna be hard to tell that the wreath was constructed of ties. And that was kinda the cool purpose in using them, so my intentions were to use the large part of the polka dot tie, as a hanger for the wreath. And I did mock it up before hand.....as seen below....

 

But.....after fully committing and hot gluing it in place, I just wasn't diggin it. Which would have made this a fail for me, since I'm kinda a perfectionist when it comes to crafting. But thankfully the craft Gods smiled upon me and I was able to just wrap it over again and the pointed end of the tie lined up perfectly for me :}  I dug around and found a matching blue button, that I sewed on....you can't use hot glue for everything!! It's the little details that count :}  And all that was left was to find a hanger.....

 

So there it is, my first tutorial. I hoped you enjoyed it. I feel super crafty and bloggy now :}  Feel free to share and post your own craftiness, I would love to see everyone else's spin on this. All images are copyrighted, so please make sure and link back to me if you use them :} Hugs and kisses to the Pop Tart for inspiring me and putting some good juju into the wreath form, and to my lil Toaster Strudel for napping throughout the day to allow me to get this done :}