The Ruffle Wreath - Tutorial

 

I know ruffles are starting to go out of style and burlap is all the rage. But.. I had this idea for a wreath and I love it. I don't know care if it's in or out... it's currently on my front door.

I thought I would share a little tutorial with you just in case you wanted to be sooo last season as well. Vintage is cool.

To begin... I had two colors of fabric in my garage that I got on clearance this past spring. It was a very bright yellow and orange fabric with dragonflies on it. It was too bright for fall and dragonfly's don't scream fall. So I simply tea dyed the fabric to downplay the colors a little and I knew the ruffles would hide the dragonflies. It's very easy to tea dye fabric. Simply boil a few tea bags in a pot and then add the fabric for five minutes or so until it's the color you want. Dry the fabric to heat set the dye and you're ready.

(the strip of fabric in the middle is the dyed fabric)

After I had the colors I wanted, I simply tore the fabric into strips to give the edge a more ragged look and ruffled the strips on my sewing machine. Doing ruffles on a sewing machine is extremely easy. First set your tension pretty high, 5 or 6, and set your stitch width as far as it will go. Then just feed your fabric through your machine and it will ruffle. I ruffled 8 strips of each color. You may need to do a bit more depending on the width of your strips. My strips were about 1.5" wide and 36" long. I used a little more than a 1/2 yard of fabric per color.

First I covered a Styrofoam wreath form with an old brown fabric that I had stored away. It's just simply hot glued on in random ways. It's not pretty but it's going to be hidden. Of course I forgot to take a picture of that part but here's the wreath form sans brown fabric. Helpful huh?...

Then I just started glue on the ruffles using a hot glue gun. Easy. I alternated the colors as I went.

See the brown fabric now? You really need it because there will be gaps between the ruffles. If you don't cover the wreath form than you will see the white Styrofoam.

Keep going until your entire wreath is covered. Of course I didn't calculate the rows of colors vs. actual wreath size so I would up with two yellow rows right next to each other. No biggie for me because I plan to cover it up with two acorns that I made out of scrapbook paper and a window valance.

 Beautiful. Love it.

Now let's make it better...

First I cut two acorn templates out of foam board and grabbed some textured scrapbook paper.

Then I found my ugliest gold window valance which was a hand me down from my dad. Don't judge.. this is what happens when you're young and broke.

 Now we're older and not as broke so I don't know what my excuse for still having it is. I'll work on that and get back to you.

I used the valance material for the base of the acorn and the scrapbook paper for the top.

cute huh?

To finish the wreath, I simply glued the acorns onto the wreath and then hung it using braided hemp cord since I can't find my wreath hanger.

And when it's finished.. this is what it should look like..