4th of July Ruffle Wreath

The Forth of July has got to be one of my very favorite holidays

I love our country and am so grateful to live here

I love the family time

I love the summer warmth of the whole day

I love the BBQs

I love the carnivals

I love the fireworks

I love the parades

and I LOVE the decor 

My hubby totally makes fun of how much I love the 

carnivals and parades its like I am a little kid again on the 4th

There is magic in the air that day

Hubby loves the holiday too
And I am so excited for Maddux for this year
I think he is at such a fun age for the parades and fireworks

I was looking around my house and super sad

cuz I had like no decor for one of my favorite holidays

so I got to work and the first thing I needed was a wreath 

for our front door, Well its a back door cuz we live in a basement 

apartment but you know what I mean :)

I finished mine a couple days ago and 

have already gotten a lot of compliments on it 

and love seeing it every time I am in and out of our door

Which is a lot these summer days :)

I am really excited to share with you how I made it

What you will need:

-A water Noodle from the dollar store

(totally beats the wreath forms that are like $8)

plus the noodles are thick so they keep the perfect circle when hung

-duct tape

-knife

-red material

-Red white and Blue felt

I got 9 rectangles of felt of red,

10 rectangles of blue, and 12 rectangles of white 

These are the rectangles you can get at Michaels of even Walmart

-Fabric scissors

-A cup or something circle to trace

-A pen or marker

-Pins

-Ribbon

-Wood Stars (Purchased at Michaels)
-white craft paint
-Sand paper

***I had all of these items on hand except the felt and noodle :)
making it a very cheap project YAY!

Here is what I did:

First I made my $1 water noodle into a wreath form

Seriously this was the best 
 I used another material piping in this post...I do not recommend it

the water noodle is much thicker making it much more durable 

and it stays in the perfect circle with no bending or sagging

I need to go back to the dollar store and stock up on these

before they are gone since they are only sold in the summer time 

I cut it down a little bit to it was the size I wanted then I put the two 

ends together making a circle and duct taped it to keep it in place

Next I took some red fabric that I had on hand cut it into strips and 

wrapped it around the wreath covering the whole thing

pinning the end to keep it in place 

I decided to wrap it in red fabric since I have a glass door 

You can see the back of the wreath so I didn't want the yellow and duct tape to 

show I would much rather see the pretty red :)

Now it is time to do the lengthy parts of the wreath

Warning!!! this does take a lot of time and patience but it is so worth it when you 

are done, you will love it 

I took my sheets of felt, my cup to trace to make my circle and a sharpie marker

I was able to trace 12 circle on each sheet
Red- 9 sheets of felt
Blue- 10 sheets of felt
White- 12 sheets of felt
making a grand total of 373 circles
yeah it took a lot you could probably get away with less
but I wanted it to look really full
Luckily felt is really cheap

After all your circles are traced it is time to cut, cut and cut

I watched TV shows while I did the tracing and cutting so it wasn't so bad

just takes time and patience like I said

Yay! all done tracing and cutting

Now you are ready for pinning

Next I marked where I wanted the blue to start and end which was about 8 inches 

I marked it with a sharpie onto the wreath

then I measured about 2 inches between each stripe 

and marked them with a pin so I knew where to start and stop with each color 

It made it easier to keep the stripes close to even

Now comes the putting it all together 

1. take your circle

2. Fold it in half

3. Then fold it in half again so that it is in quarters 

and looks like a triangle

4. Then you will take your pin and pin it right into the wreath

I continued this with the blue until I filled up the whole section that 

I had previously marked 

I made sure to keep them close together and it different directions

This gives it the fluffy ruffle look

I also made sure to cover the whole front of the wreath so only the back 

was unfinished since no one sees the back 

Once I got done with the blue section I just took it section by section

and did my white and red stripes in the marked areas switching off 

colors until I got all the way around the wreath

again this takes time so just make sure to do it with 

music, a TV show or a movie in the background 

and while the kiddos are in bed or napping :)

Once your wreath is completely covered you can be done 

or I thought it needed something else

and I had some wood stars

so I thought those would be the perfect finishing touch 

I just painted them white and sanded the edges a bit 

giving it a little worn look

then I hot glued them to the blue section

Then very last you need to be able to hang it from something

so I got some blue ribbon I had in my craft supply stash

doubled it over and tied it around the wreath 

making a knot and loop to hang it from 

then I pinned it a few times just to make it extra strong

And there she is all done and hanging on my front basement door

Pretty huh?!

I love it 

It fact I find reasons to go in an out just so I can see it

I got it up just in time for flag day and am going to keep it 

up until labor day :)

My little Maddux loves it too :)

Stay tuned the next few weeks for some other 4th of July 

crafts I have been up to lately 

they are all really cute, inexpensive and super easy

If you have any other questions on this tutorial 

Feel free to Email me at wjwiki07@hotmail.com

Oh and if you haven't seen already I have a really fun giveaway 

going on right now

come check it out and hurry and enter to win one of 

these beautiful, fashionable aprons by clicking HERE

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Thank you for Reading for your support and for following 

Happy Crafting 

XOXO