A Friday Two-fer!! Ha ha! Hello again guys! There's a long, holiday weekend ahead and I'm hoping to get MORE crafting in so I wanted to give you all the details of the Cowboy wreath, since I didn't do this one live. Once again, I may change it up. But here is what I have for now.
I have been seeing these adorable cowboy wreaths on Pinterest and Facebook for a while and wanted so bad to make one! I've really only attempted a wreath one time and it wasn't anything like this. In fact, it was completely different. It was for Halloween (hint: future craft will entail recreating this particular Halloween wreath, so stay tuned!). I knew it would be challenging and more importantly that I'd have a hard time deciding what I wanted to do, so I did not do this in a live video. I stretched it out over a few days and spent approximately 7 hours creating and recreating until I finally settled with this!
I used a wreath form from the dollar tree, fabric (in place of ribbon because it's cheaper), one roll of burlap checked ribbon, a roll of lace ribbon, raffia, flowers, some other sprigs and embellishments, a 'blessed' sign, burlap, an old pair of my sons size 6 pants, pipe cleaners, a straw hat and some twine.
I started by assembling some bows and gluing a flower in the center (You'll see the flowers in the finished product photos).
I tried to do a little math, which is really unlike me when I'm crafting, to make sure I'd have enough ribbon/material to make 8 bows. I think I cut the material and ribbons about 8" each, or so. After cutting the ends they are probably closer to 6". Before adding the flowers, I attached the bows to the wreath form with pipe cleaner. My brain was going in a million different directions as to how I would fill the gaps. I didn't want to use mesh. I didn't have enough ribbon to make more bows unless I changed them up and I didn't want to overcrowd with the bows and not have room for the other embellishments. Which would also cause me to cut and waste a lot of ribbon. So I stuck with the 8.
I don't know if it was because I was crafting in the evening after long, crazy stressful days at work or what, but I couldn't make up my mind on anything with this craft! Every idea I had and tried, pretty much failed and I was ready to give up a dozen times, at least. I wanted cotton stalks. I wanted wheat stems. I wanted lots of burlap. I even wanted to add a lasso but ditched that idea because it was just too much in the end. After adding burlap all the way around in one long piece, which took over an hour, I removed the whole darn thing and cut all that burlap into strips. I made a little messy bow type things out of it and added that all the way around to fill in the gaps. I wish I'd made the blue buffalo check ribbon under the flowers longer so it was more visible. I wish I had more ribbon, something off white and wide with a wire. I wish I'd used only lighter colored flowers. I wish I had used a different color pipe cleaner. And I wish I'd bought a bigger wreath form. Regrets aside, I love the color scheme and I'm not completely disappointed with the outcome. There's still room for improvement, for sure.
I cut the jeans shorter hoping to make the 'cowboy' appear to be smaller but I hung the jeans too low. If I'd hung them higher so the groin section of the jeans didn't show so much, they would've looked better, I think. By the time I realized that there was way too much going on and I couldn't change it. I hot glued some raffia inside the pant leg before tying it off with a piece of twine. Then I tied 3 pieces of ribbon around it and made a bow with each of the 3 different colors/patterns.
The hat was the part I had the most fun with! I couldn't find a 'cowboy' hat the size (or price!) that I wanted so I made one out of a straw hat from Michael's. I used floral wire to secure it and even a dab or two of hot glue. Hot dang! It looks like a cowboy hat now, eh?! Ha! Close enough!
I wanted it a little off center. I'm really not sure why. I just had this sort of nagging thought of making it 'my own' by not being symmetrical with everything and just going with my gut and winging it. How's that for an explanation!? I added some burlap patches to the knee, a few pieces of tied up raffia throughout the wreath as well as some wheat stems, cotton stalks and little round, stemmed embellishments in white and blue. You know, splash of color? I don't know but it sounded like a cute idea. I secured the hat in a few places with twine. I had to use my handy dandy pokey tool to make a little hole because the wicker (or whatever that's made of) wasn't cooperating with my weak little piece of twine. But she's secure now! In the end the only thing that I didn't care for was the empty space on the top left side. I wouldn't have had this problem if the wreath form was bigger. I couldn't go all the way around with the ribbon/bows and flowers because the hat would've just covered them up. I didn't want anything under the hat so this made it look kind of bare and empty on that corner. I grabbed my little 'blessed' sign after tripping over a plastic bag handle and nearly killing myself on the corner of my craft table, catching myself while accidentally knocking that sign to the floor. So that sign...was a 'sign' and therefore became a necessary part of the craft.
All in all it really didn't turn out bad at all. It's cute. And as always, there's room for improvement. Never be afraid to try new things. And don't dwell on mistakes. Almost everything in the crafting world can be fixed, changed or replaced. Part of the joy of crafting is learning. If you saw the mess I created in the first couple hours of this project I think you'd be shocked at how it turned out! Ha!!
Thank you so, so much for stopping by my blog today and sharing in my adventures! Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any updates or new blog posts! Stop by my Facebook Craft Page for more crafty fun and be sure to invite your friends to do the same! I would love to see more craft people joining in on our live adventures and sharing their own crafty ideas!
Until next time, crew. Have a wonderful holiday weekend and HAPPY CRAFTING!!!!
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