Rise of the Wreath

I don’t know what it’s like at your houses, but at our house an empty cardboard box means endless possibilities.  Imagine the kids’ excitement when a gigantic cardboard box landed at our house (online Christmas shopping has begun). That box has been a hairstylist’s salon, a jail, a playhouse, and everything else under the sun. Now it’s time to transform it once again…and get started on the Thanksgiving decorating.

Making a wreath is a simple way to welcome your guests to your house and start the holiday cheer from the second they reach your doorstep so I think that a beautiful wreath is a big part of holiday decorating. 

One thing that I think the kiddies need to always know is how to be resourceful. If you can figure out how to, say, make a wreath out of stuff already in your house, you have the skills to problem solve anything because crafting requires creativity and problem solving from start to finish. I start the activity by telling the kids that in order to make our wreath, they need to scavenge the house for stuff that would be nice on a Thanksgiving wreath. Surprisingly they find a box of pinecones. Who knows how long I’ve had that box. They also take the leaves off of the wreath we made from a faux spider web for Halloween. I nix the marbles (mostly because marbles and toddlers is a terrible mix) and we're ready to go.

All you need is a big item (pinecones), a smaller and varied item (leaves), a piece of corrugated cardboard, an exacto knife or scissors, a glue gun, and a ribbon. I hate to put the finished product picture first, but otherwise the blog picture will be of a piece of cardboard, so here's how it will look in the end: 

How to Make a Cardboard Wreath:

Step 1: Cut a ring out of corrugated cardboard. (You can use cardstock or paper board but it’s going to be thin and will need to be reinforced. Just stack and glue the paper on top of itself until you get a strong enough piece.) When I say corrugated I mean 2 pieces of cardboard sandwiched around a ruffled piece. Most boxes are already that way, but you can also easily make it with a glue gun. As you can see in the picture, there are different sizes. The taller the ruffle, the stronger it will be. Most corrugated boxes are c-flute and that will hold about 200 pounds if memory serves.

Ok, that’s enough about corrugated boxes. Let’s start over.

Step 1: Cut a ring out of corrugated cardboard. Grab an exacto knife and cut a circle in your box. Then punch the circle out of the box. Next cut a smaller circle on the inside of the circle you have and punch the middle out of that and you have a ring. Don’t worry if it’s not perfectly symmetric because you can cover up the imperfections with decorations and no one will ever know. (Ok, if you're a perfectionist, go ahead and trim it.)

Step 2: Use a glue gun to secure the largest items (pine cones).  Start with the large items, we used pinecones, because you can fill in the gaps with the small leaves much more easily than you can find enough space at the end for the large items.

As you can see, our ring is not close to being symmetric, but it won’t really matter in the end.

Step 3: Mark where you will hang it. Just draw a small line where you want to slit it and hang your ribbon. Leave a few inches in all directions around that mark unadorned. You will cover it later.

Step 4: Use a glue gun to affix the smaller items (leaves) everywhere except where you will hang it. Save some to cover the slit for hanging. Add the leaves randomly. As you end up with spots of cardboard showing your creativity in how to cover those holes will come out and it will make the wreath look more organic. 

The kids cut the leaves off of a pre-strung set so that we can glue them on individually. Then they have fun picking out the places for each leaf and tiny pinecone, but only I do the gluing because I used a hot glue gun.

Don’t mind the colossal mess in the background. We’ll get the inside ready for guests later J

Step 5: Cut a slit and string a sturdy ribbon through the slit to hang. Make sure the slit is not too close to the edge. I try to cut at least 1 inch into the wreath so that if it sags a bit it doesn’t rip through. You may need to reinforce your slit with tape to make sure it doesn’t rip depending on how heavy your wreath ends up.

Step 6: Cover up the slit, hang it, and enjoy! This is what the leaves you left out in step 4 are for. As you cover up the slit, take a step back and look at your finished project. Now is the time to fill in places that need more TLC. Briana decided that we should add leaves to the tops and sides of the pinecones to make it prettier. She was right.

Hmm…my next step should be to clean off the door.

That’s it. The whole activity took us about 20 minutes and there’s very little clean up to do. This time of year we all need something simple. I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

<3 Pedigreed Housewife