Making the World Cuter: Flashback-Big Button Burlap Wreath

It's moving week here! We are heading to beautiful Bend on Friday to start our year externship at the hospital so that my husband will finally be done with school! So that means a little break from blogging while I get the rest of the house packed and cleaned all while taking care of my babies and saying goodbye to pretty much the best friends ever! Rough week for us, but hopefully some of these old flashbacks are things you may have missed or forgotten about...

Thanks for reading, and I promise to be back soon with all new and fun stuff! If you have a tutorial to share-especially if it's something fun for the summer-send me an email and we'll get it up and featured!

xoxo

Tiff

Today's Flashback-Big Button Burlap Wreath-

Originally posted in February of 2010

This wreath served me well for many a month, and I think it works well for summer too, if I have time and energy once I move to Bend, I think I'll make some more buttons and paint them with some patio paint in bright colors like yellow, orange and teal. The buttons on this one have cracked paint because I never did seal them off before I stuck them out in the weather, but it still looks cute sitting in my room waiting for it's next makeover....Let the flashback begin NOW!

So I needed to put together a tutorial, I looked around the house, found some burlap, some red gingham and a floral wreath.

Okay, I could work with that.

This wreath was super easy, involved no sewing or gluing, and could literally take you about five minutes to create.
I took a little bit longer of course, because I can't do a five minute craft and think that it's done. I always have to do a bit more.
Let's get on with the tutorial shall we?

First I cut long strips of burlap, I think I ended up using 4 strips in all.

Then I just wrapped them around, overlapping the ends to keep them all on.

This is the base of my wreath-simple yes?
But with such simplicity comes great responsibility, I mean creativity.

At the end of my wrappings I had the end of my strip that I needed to attach, but remember I said no glue right?

Enter small strip of gingham tied around the burlap.

I did this around the wreath spacing it out as I went.I could have been done there, hung it up, and went to bed, it's a cute wreath, I can change out the gingham for other fabric strips or ribbon with the different seasons or holidays, or whenever the mood strikes...but that just would be too easy for me!

I went to my craft closet, which is full of stuff I intend to use one day, but usually don't. Well I had these giant buttons that I made out of salt dough using a large glass for the circle, a smaller glass for the rim and a straw to poke the holes. I was going to make ornaments out of them...but got busy, forgot, or maybe I just lost interest.

So I painted up 5 of them in my favorite 3 colors.

I used another strip of gingham through the top hole and then I grabbed some yarn.

I laced the yarn around the wreath and through the button to attach it to the wreath-see no gluing-not that I'm against gluing, it just would have involved getting up off the rug and sitting near a plug to do it, and I was too involved watching Taken with my hubby.

Then I just tied the yarn off in the back with a simple double knot and trimmed the edges like so...

And there you have it, buttons on my burlap wreath! It's very valentine-ish and looks pretty hanging on my shelf...but I think I will spray the buttons with some clear spray so that I can hang it out on my front door.

It is quite large, so I think it will make a big statement front and center.

...and I may need to add another black button, I have a thing about even numbers, and I know it will bug me every time I look at it. But other than that...what do you think?

***Edit: I have been asked by a couple people about the salt dough.

You can find lots of recipes online, but the one I usually use is 2 parts flour to 1 part salt and 1 part water. So if you use 2 cups of flour, use 1 cup of salt (fine) and 1 cup of water.

Knead it and either roll it out and cut it with cookie cutters (or in my case for the buttons-glasses and a straw) or you can hand mold it into anything you want.

Then you can either air dry it-which can take several days, or you can put it into a warm oven (200 F) for about 3-4 hours, less if your project is flat, more if it's large.

It's super easy to work with, and my kids love to make ornaments with it almost every year. We have also made hearts for valentines day, used a straw to make a hole, and gave them out as necklaces to my kids' friends. Easy, cheap and the kids get to do it all by themselves. :)