We All Need A Little Love

We all need a little love (or actually, more like a lot) especially in the middle of cold dreary blah February. So, what could be better than Valentine's Day? I think Valentine's day is wonderful. Not because of the stupid ideas the commercial industry tries to instill, but for the opportunity it provides to tell friends and family you love them. Plus, in my opinion, there is no better bonus than cute hearts and everything that come along with it. Here is something to get you started in preparing for the cute/fun/romantic celebration of your choice :)

Heart Wreath

(This is a picture of one from a craft website called adornit. You can buy the stuff to make one from them here http://www.adornit.com/Shop/Shop.cfm?pg=individual&tid=26&pid=61007 they have super cute things,
or you can follow my steps below with your own materials)

What You'll Need:

A Cardboard box, chipboard or foam board large enough to make the size wreath you desire
Pretty paper, newspaper, wrapping paper or whatever you want to make the decorative part of your wreath from (the bigger your wreath is the more you'll need)
Ribbon to embellish/hang your wreath
Glue Stick
Hot glue gun and glue

To get started, make yourself a heart shaped template out of paper or newspaper in the size that you want your heart wreath to be. Then fold your heart template in half and cut a second heart out of the middle of template.

Now trace your template onto your cardboard or other material and then cut it out with scissors or an xacto knife. It does not need to look clean or perfect because you are going to be covering it up.

Next, cut or rip your paper into strips. Ripping gives a more rustic country look, cutting gives a more uniform look. You can decide how thick you want your strips, you do however want to make sure that they are wide enough to hang over the edges of your template so that it is hidden from view.

Now it is time to start rolling your strips into tubes. Try to get the most rolls you can out of your paper by not overlapping too much and using more paper than you need per roll. You can also decide how tightly or loosely to roll your strips. The tighter you roll them, the more you'll need to make to fill in your wreath, the looser you roll them the fewer it will take to fill in your wreath. When you reach the end of your roll, use the glue stick to glue the end in place.

Once you have rolled a bunch of paper tubes, it's time to attach them to the cardboard template. Use the gluegun to secure the tubes in place. Now, remember you will have to angle and arrange to tubes to fit the curves and points of the template. It is a good plan of attack to place some on and then go back and fill in any gaps or holes you may have. You will most likely need to double the layers some spots. Just keep tweaking it until it suits your fancy.

Lastly, embellish your wreath with buttons, bows, glitter, paper hearts, flowers, or whatever else you love. Just glue items on with your glue gun. Then when you are finished, turn the wreath over and hot glue a loop of ribbon so that you can hang your wreath.