Fine-feathered Friend

It's almost fall! And you know what that means? It's wreath-building time! There is something about leaves changing colour and pumpkins everywhere that makes me want to build wreaths. I don't get that urge any other time of the year. To paraphrase Courtenay at The Creek Line House, "Fall is textury."

I had been asked to make wreaths for some family members, but I missed out on getting them finished for summer. I don't even have one on my own door. Just some lovely scratches from the wreath that hung all last winter. When will that get touched up? I dunno. Probably around the same time I finish painting the trim in the front foyer.

While we were in Pennsylvania I stocked up on grapevine wreaths at Joann's (using my trusty coupons!) I even bought one at a yard sale. Is that crazy to go to a yard sale when you're on vacation in another country? Then this week I headed out to the dollar store to find the decorations. Since the soon-to-be-wreath-owning family members are all closely related and will see each other all the time, I had to make each one unique. I even managed to come up with ideas to make them personalized.

I started the first one with an 18" grapevine wreath, wooden numbers (also from Joann's) that I sprayed with Krylon "ivy leaf", and flowers and feathers from that ol' dollar store. I'm guessing that they're pheasant feathers. Anyone know for sure?

The building of this one was really straight-forward and easy to do. I tucked the feathers into the vines, facing upwards and downwards, and then added the red flowers into the centre. I salvaged some tiny green leaves from another wreath and slid them in behind the flowers to balance the green numbers on the other side.

Once I had an arrangement I liked I hot glued each feather to either the wreath or the feather below it. I only used a tiny dot of glue - just enough to keep them from falling or blowing out. Those Canadian winds can be menacing! 

The numbers were arranged along the opposite side of the circle. I had to slightly overlap them because they're so large, but glueing them to each other rather than only to the wreath gives them more stability anyway.

I used some wide brown satin ribbon (the same as I used on this gift) as a hanger and declared it complete!

Wasn't that simple? Of course now she can never move. Unless she only looks at houses numbered 1483. Can you imagine telling your real estate agent that? "No, I'm sorry, it's just not the right number."

I'm drawn to both the simplicity of the design and the different textures. 

Flowers, feathers, wood, grapevine. Oh, and satin. 

I hope you'll come back to see the other two!

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I'm linking up here this week!