Handmade Christmas Part 1: Shabby Rag Wreath

Confession: I have too many wreaths. About six at last count, yet I only have one front door. However, that's not going to deter me from making yet another one.

I've had some simple bamboo hoops laying around for ages which I intended to turn into more dream hoops but never quite got around to it. So I figured, because I really need another wreath, to turn one into a shabby rag wreath. Here's how to do it:

I found some Christmassy fabrics in my stash (red striped ticking, calico and a pretty fleur-de-lys voile plus some other scraps) and cut them into a big pile of 1 x 6 inch strips (a rotary cutter comes in handy for this). Then, you might want to put something good on telly because tying them all on can be a little  brain-numbing.

I gave my fabric strips a haircut when I was finished because it looked a bit like a shaggy dog with lots of uneven straggly bits. Then I found some glittery gold ribbon and wrapped it loosely round the wreath with a loop at the top.

Now comes the fun bit - I had a MDF star shape in my box of tricks (that was meant to be turned into a door hanger for Holly's room, but that never happened either) so I covered it with lots of PVA glue and strips of old sewing pattern. Once it had dried I layered it with red ink, vintage photo distress stain, black cherry glimmermist, silver glimmermist and gold ink until my hands were so red and sparkly I looked like I'd just murdered an elf.

I found a little iron-on applique to glue to the middle of the star, glued the whole thing together and gave it all a liberal spray of silver glimmermist. Voila!

Now I just need another door to hang it on...