Jingle Bells and Felt Ball Wreaths

Yes it’s that time of year again, where I start singing all the Christmas Carols that I know albeit rather badly! But I do love this time of year, I love the giving of presents and family and friends coming together to celebrate the festive season. Yes it can all be a little too hyper commercial but we like to make Gingerbread men, handmade christmas cards and decorations to get us in to the spirit!

Last Christmas I was lusting after a felt ball wreaths by the amazingly talented Captain and Co. This year, I thought I would try my own attempt at one. Gee whizz, I should have known what I was in for but hey, I persisted in my DIY attempts! And well if you decide that you ever wish to do it as well, I have a few helpful tips for you.

Firstly, I would just pay a professional like Captain and Co and get them to do it for you!

Ok, seriously though, a rookie error on my behalf was ordering the 1cm balls. If you do decide to do attempt one yourself, bigger is certainly better in this case as the bigger balls are easier to stick with a  hot glue gun and you won’t burn yourself as much. I burnt myself about 12 times – each time was extremely painful and I still have a blister that hasn’t fully recovered.  Lastly, it will take you a third of the time. You could probably do one in an hour, rather than the 3+ hours it took me to do mine over the course of 2 weekends.

My original estimate of 350 on a small wreath would have been fine, however, I could only find one standard size at Spotlight and it was rather large! After getting through 350 balls, I had run out and still had half way to go on my wreath. My eldest son who was helping me sort the balls in to colours and passing them to me to glue on, was certainly thinking and even said “Mama, you are so crazy!!. Yep he was certainly spot on there. Oh my, why oh why did I decide to do it myself.

Sometimes I curse myself and my #pinterest obsession!

I quickly contacted The Felting Dorcas who I had purchased from originally to request another 350 more! She promptly sent more but it meant another weekend to wait before I would  have time to finish it off. Luckily in the end we had enough, with only about 10 that I destroyed with hot glue and another 10 or more left over.

So don’t look to closely as you may notice a few gaps, but overall I am happy with my crazy multi colour wreath and Jasper and I had lots of fun together over two weekends helping to create our Christmas “Masterwreath”!

Christmas Wreath - deerDeer deerFelt ball wreath 2Honeycomb loveChristmas display 2Xmas display bright

We have also been busy this week sorting out our Advent Calendar in preparation for next week. We used the brilliant Mr Printables Paper City one this year which is a gorgeous mini streetscape which arrives as 24 cards with pre-cut and pre folded lines and all  you have to do is fold and glue. You can then fill each cardboard house with little items. A good friend was filling her own advent calendar with a gorgeous written daily affirmation as her children are still babes.

Instead for my boys will be  boys, I cut up some Star Wars stickers and used fake tattoos from Inkibabinki as well as of course, chocolate balls and Santa’s. I also found some very cute little wooden green spinning tops in the shape of a tree from Pulp Creative Paper and popped them in as well.

Advent calendarRP advent 2Mr P mini city

Details:

Foam wreath – Spotlight

Felt balls – The Felting Dorcas

Wooden Christmas trees – Little Card Boutique

Mini Deer – Pulp Creative Paper

Twinkly little lights – Little Paper Lane

Poppies for Grace honeycombs – Little Paper Lane & Pulp Creative Paper

Wooden trees – Muji play sets

Mr Printables Paper City

Lego trees and Kinder Surprise cars – our own!