Here's another Christmas project that I made this year.
I unfortunately don't have fabulous pictures of this gift. A lot of times I end up madly crafting until the very last minute and don't get a chance to snap photos before I gift something. This time that's not what happened. I just plain forgot. So it was up to my mom to snap some photos for me. And my mom's camera is temperamental. :(
This wreath took close to 500 rolled flowers to make. Yes, I am, in fact, completely insane.
In the end, I would probably never make one of these again. ;) Or at least I would make a MUCH smaller version (I think the wreath form I used was a 14 inch?). Or maybe pack the roses less tightly? Sometimes (most times), the fact that I'm completely neurotic really trips me up. This baby took me forever and a day to finish.
I used my Cuttlebug to cut out the roses (I put about 3 pages of book together before running it through with the die to give it more stability and lots of ruffles). The Cuttlebug is the only die-cutting machine I own, and the whole time I was making this wreath, all I could think about was how I truly, definitely needed to invest in an electronic one. Hand cranking 500 rolled roses is not as fun and carefree as one might think. ;) At least it's kind of mindless though. I just sat in front of the TV and cranked, rolled and glued...and cranked, rolled and glued...and cranked, rolled and glued...
Before gluing the roses to the wreath, I wrapped the styrofoam wreath form with some burlap garland (basically a really long strip of burlap) that I found in the floral section of Michael's. This gave the back of the wreath a more-finished appearance and made the roses easier to glue on, without fear of melting the styrofoam.
After I was done gluing all the roses on, I lightly inked the edges of some of the roses by brushing an ink pad over the wreath. This was an afterthought, and if I had it to do again, I would have inked some of the roses individually before gluing them down, instead. I think it would have looked a little more natural.