Made By Me Monday: Burlap Wreath

I'm on a mission this holiday season. I've banished wrapping paper from our house in an effort to find more environmentally friendly and unique ways of packaging our presents for friends and loved ones. So, as I was putting together a coffee themed gift for a relative, I went in search of a place that sold the burlap bags coffee beans are shipped in, thinking I could use the burlap sack to wrap the gift. Luckily, the Online Fabric Store not only had the bags I was looking for, but they also were incredibly inexpensive and shipped very quickly (I even got a shipping discount). Since they were inexpensive, I bought more than I needed, figuring I would think of a crafty way to use these very cool printed burlap sacks. So, here is my first adventure with coffee bean burlap: a coffee-inspired burlap wreath.

There are a couple of really good reasons to use the coffee bean bag rather than simply buying a yard or two of burlap fabric. First, it's environmentally friendly. You are finding a creative way to upcycle burlap rather than purchase burlap that's never been used. And second, you can't go to a fabric store and find the cool prints that these coffee bags have on them. Depending upon how you wrap your wreath, you can really incorporate some of the great colors and texts that you'll find on the coffee sacks. You'll notice that in the pictures of the smaller wreath that I created, I didn't incorporate much of the printed text on the burlap into my design. But on my second larger wreath, I wrapped the strips of burlap so that the text and graphics showed a bit more. Since many of the graphics were in red and green, I think I'll be decorating this larger wreath to fit in with my Christmas decor. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me show you how to create this great, upcycled coffee bean burlap wreath.

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

• 1 burlap coffee bean bag
• straw wreath of any size
• hot glue gun
• scissors
• ribbon of your choosing, though wired ribbon is easier to shape
• decorative button
• any other decorative elements you might want to incorporate on your wreath

DIRECTIONS:

1. Begin by cutting your burlap into strips about 2-inches wide. Keep in mind, this will be a messy process. You will have threads and burlap dust everywhere. But since you're creating a rustic-looking wreath, you don't really want neat edges. There's no need to measure before cutting since the fabric will unravel in places.


2. Plug in the hot glue gun; it's time to burn some fingers. Be warned, a little hot glue goes a long way. Since the burlap is an open weave, be careful of burning your fingers. You'll use your hot glue gun as you wrap the strips of burlap around your straw wreath. Start by hot gluing one end of a strip to your wreath on a slight diagonal. You'll use your glue gun each time you come to the end of a strip and need to add a new one. Keep in mind that you ideally want your strips to end on the backside of the wreath, so you may need to cut off some of the length of your strips to ensure that you'll be gluing on the back of your wreath. Before gluing a strip into place, wrap it to make sure the design looks as you want it to. Do you want more or less of the coffee bean graphic and text showing?


3. Now that your wreath base is put together, you can begin to decorate. I wrapped this small wreath with ribbon following the diagonal of the burlap wrap. I also left ribbon on the back of the wreath so that I could create a loop to hang the wreath.


4. There are a number of great tutorials on the web for creating decorative flowers, some of which I've listed below. I wanted to create a flower using the coffee bean burlap, but since I knew the fabric would likely ravel, I couldn't use a pattern that called for clean edges. So I created my own flower. I began with four 3x3 inch squares of fabric, and four 2x2 inch squares of fabric. I first folded each square into a triangle. Then, holding the folded edge, I took the outside tips of the triangle and folded them toward the top tip. I used doubled up quilting thread and used a few stitches to hold the folded triangles together, but you could also use hot glue. You'll repeat this for each of the squares of fabric, which should leave you with four large petals and four small ones
   
5. To assemble the flower, you can either stitch or hot glue the large petals together at the center. If you stitch, as I did, double up your thread and cut an extra long piece. I used only one length of thread to assemble this flower, often leaving the needle sticking up through the center and stacking my parts onto the needle.


6. After securing the four bottom petals together, you'll use ribbon to create the next layer. I simply looped in my ribbon so that it would peak through the open spaces between the large petals, folding it much like you would an awareness ribbon, with the printed side of the ribbon always facing up.


7. 
   Then repeat with the smaller petals. Once you have your layers together, secure them by stitching a button at the center of the flower. Then all you need to do is hot glue your flower to your wreath and you're done!

OTHER IDEAS:

• Here's a great tutorial and pattern for making fabric flowers from Blair over at Wise Craft
• And I've also used this tutorial and pattern from the women over at DIY Dish to make felt flowers
• This is another great tutorial from Emily over at LaForce be with You for making a burlap rosette covered wreath

You'll find this tutorial linked at:

Made By Me Monday: Easy Earring Display

Looking for a unique gift for a jewelry lover? Instead of simply purchasing a pair of earrings and wrapping them up in a generic gift box, why not give two gifts in one? This easy to make earring display stand makes a nice gift by itself or as a lovely display on which to hang a gift of homemade earrings (and here's a great earring tutorial).


SUPPLIES:
Before beginning, you will need to make a trip to your local arts and crafts store (don't forget your 40% off coupon), and then a trip to your local hardware store. You will need:

• a good pair of crafting scissors or a safety cutter
• a wooden picture frame, a 5x7 frame works well

• a picture frame or plate stand
• glue gun and glue
• a roll of pet screening (large weave, plastic instead of wire)
• decorative drawer pulls (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Begin by carefully removing the entire back from the frame. You'll also remove the glass, but don't discard it. You'll need to use the glass as your template for your screen material.


2. Lay the glass from the frame on the pet screen material. Use masking tape to mark off the area you will need to cut, and use your scissors or safety cutter to cut out a section of screen that will fit where the glass used to sit. Your screen will need to be slightly larger than the opening of the frame as you will need to secure it to the back side of the frame.


3. Next use your hot glue gun to secure the screen mesh to the back inside of the frame.


4. The optional drawer pulls can be screwed into the front of the frame to be used as a place to hang necklaces and bracelets. However, you only want to add these pulls to a sturdy frame that you feel comfortable drilling into.


5. Use the picture stand or plate stand to prop the earring display up. And there you have it! You're own easy-to-make earring display.

You'll also find this tutorial linked at:

Made By Me Monday: Give the Gift of Art

First, let me begin by saying I am not an artist. Not long ago, feeling emboldened by David Bromstad on HGTV, I picked up six small canvases at my local craft store and a handful of paint. He made it look so easy. Slap some paint on a canvas and voilà! A connected collage of beautiful branches. Yeah. Not so easy. What I ended up with where six tan canvases weighed down with thick, uneven logs. I could not paint the delicate twigs that David so gracefully looped onto canvas. Mine were a thick, smeary disaster. Needless to say, my first attempt at painting ended up as kindling. But, it didn't stop me from trying to paint. And, I've found a couple of easy tricks for creating art for any room. Below is a quick tutorial on creating a simple and modern painting for any space.

Start by picking up a couple of pre-made canvases at your local arts and crafts store. For this project, I am using a 12 x 12 canvas. This is a great time of year to stock up on canvases as you'll find tons holiday coupons online making it incredibly inexpensive to pick up a pack of pre-made canvases.

You'll also need some good, stiff, flat-head brushes. The stiff, flat tip will make it easier to cut into tight corners as you paint. Skip the cheap multi-brush pack. The hairs fall out easily as you paint, and you don't want to be picking brush hairs off your canvas.

Then, select three different acrylic paint colors. Again, you can find both art and craft paints just about anywhere. If you use craft paints (like those pictured), you will need to paint more than one coat as the craft acrylic paints do not cover as well as the art paints.

Begin by drawing your pattern onto your canvas with a pencil. Grab two different sized circles to use as templates. A cereal bowl and drinking glass worked well for me. Start by drawing the larger circles onto your canvas. Make sure the circles overlap. Then, go back and draw on the smaller circles in a random pattern. The more places your circles overlap, the more variation you will have in your painting. Something neat to also try is wrapping your circles onto the edges of your canvas.

Before you begin painting your circles, figure out your color pattern. You'll see from my picture that I labeled each section to indicate what color I would need to paint it. This makes it much easier to see in advance what your pattern will look like and to make sure that you don't accidentally put two of the same colored sections right next to each other. What you end up with is a canvas that looks a lot like a children's paint-by-number picture.

And then paint away! To make your lines smooth, don't load your brush up with a lot of paint - a little goes a long way - and pull your paint brush toward you. Paint one color at a time, waiting until one color dries before beginning the next. You'll paint over your pencil marks, so they won't show. And remember, if you make a mistake, you can always paint right over it once it dries.

And you're done! You can hang this canvas just as it is or use it as a background for some decoupaged images to give your piece even more depth.

Trust me, if I can do this, anyone can! Happy painting!