My side venture...sanity helper...same diff...

I have so many things waiting to be written but it's just so hard to sit down and write lately. Partially because it's slightly uncomfortable, partly because some of the things I want to write about are difficult to get out, and partly because even though I am still under restrictions and have help with the kids I'm still trying to do too many things in a day. And here is one of them.

 

This is probably a shameless plug but whatever, it's my blog. :) Even before I was laid off a few years ago I liked to do crafty things. Jack's birthday and the holidays offered limited opportunities. Then I was laid off, then pregnant, then diagnosed and my time was consumed by a new baby, and more doctor's appointments and procedures then many people can even imagine. So when I was done with active treatment, when AR was a little older and more independent (which is the ONLY thing she is these days, highly independent, you'd think the kid is 21 years old and not 21 months old!), I started to look for a small something to fill my time with again.

My Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Birthday post has remained pretty popular on pinterest, and I love to do certain crafty things, so I started up Moose Country Crafts to provide me with something to do! I love to make rustic, simple things so if you want to take a look, that would be awesome. You can also always follow me on Facebook, or on Instagram @moosecountrycrafts and twitter @moosecntrycrfts.

 

Summer...and a wreath.

Summer is here. For most people today brings visions of sunny days, cool drinks, pool splashes, and fun in the sun. For me it means that after today the days start getting blessedly shorter again, it means that I need to hide inside during the hottest parts of the day, it means that I must endure this torturous time in order to get to the most wonderful time of the year - FALL!! I try my hardest every year to ignore summer. Heat, sun and Jamie do not mix. There were days during last year's interminable heat wave that I was actually glad I didn't have hair because I was so frickin hot. However, I do have children so I do have to put up some semblance of enthusiasm about every season and holiday. And that starts with a wreath on the door - simple yet festive. I may be hiding inside but at least the outside of my house relays the message "We have some spirit!!"

I found this tutorial earlier this year and gave it a shot for Valentine's Day. I was still doing chemo so not up for anything super complicated and this fulfilled my craft fix for a bit. Also great - I love my wooden door decorations, but I do not love them when it's windy, and we get quite a bit of wind around here. I don't have to take these down or hear knocking on the door all day and night - win win!

 What I love is that after you get the idea, you can do pretty much whatever you want with it. Use whatever color yarn you want, whatever size wreath form, whatever cutouts - it's all good!  

 

 

Start with your foam wreath form (say that a few times fast). I try to remember to use my 40% Michaels, Joann's or Hobby Lobby coupons to get them, and that keeps the cost of these wreaths really reasonable. The skein of yarn was probably $3 and this is the second wreath I've used it on. A few sheets of felt and the form, and the whole thing is about six bucks! Works for me. Anyway, grab your form, whichever size you want, hot glue a piece of yarn down to start, and start wrapping that bad boy. I used red because I have a blue door...I'd probably do blue if I had any other color door, but do whatever floats your boat or shoots your firecracker in this case. I do mine pretty tight, I wind the yarn a few times, tighten and squish it back so there is no form showing through. Takes me about 1.5 to 2.5 hours to do the whole thing depending on who's screaming or how many times I need to play with Lightning McQueen.

 

I used a cookie cutter to trace some stars out of glitter felt, because I'm sassy like that, and because Fourth of July should be glittery.

 

Take your hot glue gun, which I sincerely hope works better than mine, and glue the stars wherever you would like them to be.

The tutorial uses criss crosses on most of their wreaths and you can see I did criss crosses on the Valentine's one above, but that wreath was bigger and I thought this one was too small and too busy to support full on criss crosses, so I just did one layer around. Glue a little yarn hanger around the top...and there you have it - voila! A simple easy cheap Fourth of July wreath.

 

 

Now please excuse me while I fool myself into ignoring the next three months and dream of the fall and winter ones that I can make.