Eco-Chic Craft: Upcycled Flower Wreath

April 4, 2011

Do you ever have trouble finding time to be crafty? To create? To explore your imagination? I do! My life is so busy that when I'm at home, I dread the thought of setting up my sewing machine...and cutting out patterns. That is my least favorite part of sewing...


Besides the cuteness of this flower wreath, it is most appealing because it is so easy to make - and very difficult to mess up! All I needed was a lazy Sunday night with The Office streaming constantly on Netflix and I was GTG (good to go).


Side note: My goal is to have all or most of my crafting adventures have an eco-chic factor to them. Ok, so this is obvious because of the name of my blog, but also because crafting can quickly become an expensive hobby that uses lots of resources. I try to focus on finding most of my crafting supplies at thrift stores, antique stores, or my stash. There will be an eco-chic inventory at the end of every craft to see how well I can hold myself accountable to this goal...


I took inventory of my supplies...For this project, you will need a styrofoam wreath, flower punches, an old magazine (Real Simple worked amazing well for me), pins, and some white scrap paper (I save old mail, forms, even resumes to print Groupons, etc on I just pulled some out of my printer stash).




[caption id="attachment_450" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Supplies..."][/caption]

Then, you punch. And punch. And punch. Then you get almost done with your project, run out of large flowers, and punch some more! The small flowers were almost therapeutic but the large flowers were kind of frustrating. The leftover paper kept getting stuck in the puncher.


The punching noise is very distracting for your partner who might also be watching The Office...I found that just ignoring him and punching out a little bit faster resolved this issue. But that might not work so well for you...bribery in the form of chocolate or a freshly-carbonated Soda Stream works in my house too.




[caption id="attachment_449" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Lots o' flowers punched during an episode of The Office...but not enough! "][/caption]

Do some layering and pinning...




[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="255" caption="Layer them like so..."]image[/caption]

Making progress...At this point I wasn't so sure that I was in love with my end results. My wreath isn't quite as classy as the example that I was following but it fits my home's style a bit more. Playful and messy. More messy than playful but whatevs.




[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="356" caption="Another episode or two of The Office goes by..."]image[/caption]

And then we are finished!! You can use ribbon to hang it on the wall...




[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="371" caption="Finished!! Ribbon on stand by..."]image[/caption]

But I haven't yet...I just used a leftover pin until it finds a forever (aka Spring) home in our apartment...and now I love it! It might be moved to my office for a playful decoration...




[caption id="attachment_446" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Bringing Spring to our walls! "][/caption]

You can also see a mirror that we scooped up at Rogers Flea Market waiting to be painted and hung up...It's been there for, well, awhile. And is now officially on the to-do list!


Eco-chic Supplies - Styrofoam wreath (Goodwill), repurposed magazine and paper, ribbon from earlier project


New Supplies - 2 flower punches (but already have several other uses for them!) and pins (will be used on future sewing projects).


One of the best eco-chic factors of this wreath is that it will be completely recycled and repurposed when its end comes! It's the circle of crafting...


Places I link to...Check them out and let them out for more great posts!













6 comments:

Rleen said...

Beautiful wreath! Thanks for sharing. I saw your entry at the C.R.A.F.T.
Hugs, Rleen

Katie said...

Thanks so much for stopping by! I already have a second on in the works because it is so adorable!

Spring Stashbust! | Eco-Chic in Suburbia said...

[...] the way…I already focus on buying what I can used and upcycling items I already own (like my my upcycled flower wreath). Stashbusting will give me the reason to focus on what I have – not what I need. And maybe [...]

Jessica Lauren said...

This is so stinkin' cute! I love it!

Katie said...

Thanks for stopping by! I think so too :)

brandi said...

Wow, what a great way to recycle old magazine pages!!! Your wreath turned out great! Thanks so much for stopping by my blog! I really appreciate your visit!