"Modular" Holiday Wreath

Decorating for the holidays is so much fun. I've seen so many beautiful wreath designs and I wish I had room to STORE a wreath for every holiday. But I don't.

So I designed this "modular" wreath. It's made from a fiberboard wreath form, felt, glue, and velcro.

Next month, I will change the hearts to shamrocks.

Then I will make Easter bunnies.

Then I'll do a spring flowers design. Flags for the Fourth of July. Fall leaves for September. Pumpkins and Ghosts for Halloween. Turkeys for Thanksgiving. The possibilities are endless... and I can store everything in one medium-sized box!

If the wreath is going to be outside, PAINT it ... front and back.... with several layers of good quality acrylic paint, then mark the eighteen sections lightly with pencil.

(NOTE: I used a fairly narrow sixteen-inch fiber board wreath form. If your wreath form is wider, you may not need eighteen sections. That's what the "planning" step is all about. Sketch it out and decide how many elements will look good on YOUR wreath!)

Next, put self-adhesive velcro strips on the board, alternating between the "hard" side of the velcro and the "soft" side of velcro.

The heart should be large enough to extend just a little bit beyond the velcro. We want the hearts to overlap slightly.

For my design, every OTHER heart was double. So every double heart should have the "soft" side of velcro stitch on the back, and every single heart should have the "hard" side of the velcro stitched to the back.

I stitched the velcro to the felt hearts, but you COULD just use hot glue.

In steps 1-4, I wrote instructions for what I SHOULD have done. But really, I started out with sixteen hearts and discovered that I really needed eighteen to fill the wreath nicely.

I also discovered, once I started to write up these instructions, that the sixteen inch wreath form that I got at a second-hand store is not a common size. So the nicely traced heart pattern that I WAS going to include will not be very useful to anyone who doesn't have a sixteen-inch wreath.

Normally, I create a prototype for an Instructable, then make a second version, refining the steps so that I can write better instructions. But I decided to make my first modular wreath in time for Valentine's day, using materials that I had on hand. If you look closely, my Valentine's wreath is not spaced perfectly. The color pattern is not exactly what I intended, but I ran out of pink felt.

So my first modular wreath is not a work of precision. Modular works best if things are more precise.

For the MARCH wreath, I'll buy a more commonly accessible form and actually FOLLOW steps 1-4!

In spite of its lack of precision, I am happy with my Valentine wreath. I added a bow, which is actually lavender elastic but it's the right color and I don't normally keep a lot of ribbon on hand.

I will be making a St. Patrick's day wreath next month. If you'd like me to write up the Instructable... add a comment below!