Christmas gift crafted: summertime wreath

After I had floated the idea of wreath creation for Christmas gifts with my sisters and mom, our family decided the adults would draw names for a gift exchange. My mother threatened to rig it so I got her name and she got her wreath! When I drew her name I was suspicious but she claims she did not do anything dishonest and I believe her.

Regardless, her request had been for a summertime wreath. In fact she sent me this link to a summer wreath by the blogger Miss Kopy Kat:

Summer wreath by Miss Kopy Kat

At one point I read the instructions in regards to how the rope was wound and attached. Then a month passed, Christmas neared, and I holed up in the basement art room to work on this beast. In the meantime, any thought to how it looked flew out of my mind.

Since I mostly used what I had on hand – including a thrifted wreath base and some seashells owned by myself and my mom – mine turned out a bit differently. My wreath base was twisted grapevine and so when I wrapped the first round of rope (which ran just a bit short), there were spots that seemed thicker than others. Also, I wasn't satisfied with the width of the wreath itself so I decided to go around the wreath a second time. In the end my husband bought three 100-foot rolls of twisted sisal rope from Lowe's and I used two and a half or so.

The seashells and coral treasures I had are smaller in scale. I chose a sand dollar as the star of the show. And I couldn't help but start out symmetrical in my arranging! I loosened up a bit as I went. Since my seashells were smaller, I made sure to glue some kind of along the inside ring so they would show as well. The finishing touch was a few arranged up top as well. Tah-dah!