Square Book/Map Wreath

So my new front door is my enemy! I really really dislike it! It has two windows in it so whoever comes up to the door can see right in! Discussion of what to do regarding those no-privacy windows just kept taking back burner to larger projects.

Until I had this strong crafty pull to make a wreath! I had this great 16x20 frame that I thought I'd put on one side of the door and then make another frame for the other side. And they'd help with visibility into the house from the sidewalk etc..

Here's my quickly painted and a few flowers and a "M' taped on frame.

Then I came across this blog and LOVED the look! so I attempted to duplicate :-)

Supplies

 Book and or Map you will be ok cutting up (I really wanted to use Charlotte's Web or a Dr Seuss, but couldn't make myself cup them up.. so I got a very interesting teen novel for $1 at Goodwill that I had no issues destroying!)
Cardboard- the sturdier the better (as you will see I learned the hard way)
Hot glue gun
Giant paper punch. Mine is 2in scalloped edge but kind of wish I would have gone with the 3in. Buy at JoAnns not Michaels!
a pencil
a piece of ribbon
box cutter

Step 1 Punch out book pages. I was able to get 6 punches per page and I did all 200some pages of the book (really only 100 because front and back..) Did not use all of them. You could probably get away with 50pages...

I did mostly book pages with some map cutouts too.

Traced the frame onto cardboard using a sharpie then cut it out with box cutter.





Step 2 Take pencil end and wrap punched paper around it to form a cup/flower.. whatever you think it looks like. I did a large group of them at a time then hot glued. You could probably glue right after this step but I thought making a ton of paper cups at a time was more time efficient.

Step 3 DON'T BURN YOUR FINGERS! (aka hot glue paper cups down.) I added in some of the maps.. basically just tried to cover all of the cardboard.

I attached a very small ribbon on the top and glued paper over it but so on the back I could thread different ribbon around that ribbon to hang it from... so I could switch out visible ribbon if needed..

And tada.......

(Oh and it's suppose to be a rocking horse, goes with the name of our street.. but Husband informed me couldn't see the bottom of it and "We're not THAT country to have a horse on our front door!")

So it lived there for awhile but what GREAT IDEA I had of the two wreaths (M frame inside and this one outside) did not work out.. They did NOT match up and I was going to need to paint the back of both wreaths! And we kind of have some crazy wind at our house so this poor flimsy cardboard wreath was not holding up to the "wild nature" of Southern Cali! Would work ALOT better to glue onto a frame! Then it could have stayed out front!

So I moved it inside and instead of taking the time and painting both backs to hang back on the door I found it a new home (for now)!

Hope you got inspired!

ENJOY!

Vegetable Id Posts

We finally got our garden planted! I am so excited to plant our garden in the ground this year! It's been in containers for the past 2 years and I am really hoping it just takes over out there.

I thought it would be cute to have little stakes that said which vegetables were what, especially since we started most from seeds. I had some craft popsicle sticks laying around, picked up a sharpie and some markers and wrote down what the veggies were. So proud of myself and then..... fast forward to when my husband watered the garden for the first time and sure enough my markers were not waterproof.. :-(

Did a little googling and found DIY: Garden Stakes. SOOO CUTE!!!

It was a project I did outside while the kids were playing. They even came over and helped with the first coat of paint.

These were my colors.. really wanted yellow but didn't have enough

You can tell that the Lowe's side was hard to cover- but it's only on one side.

She says to use a paint pen to write the types.. Had no idea what a paint pen was or where to find it, but they are locked up at Michaels.. sharpie brand is what I picked up- also called a poster pen. Just FYI..

There's my little basil plant!