Download Day – Be Generous

I know, I know.  Download Day is late by about 36 hours.  But I just couldn’t bring myself to sit down and blog yesterday.  I was doing mom stuff and wife stuff and family stuff – in other words….I was running errands.  But between each errand I ended up having to keep coming home to help Jason or put Cole down for a nap and I don’t know what else.  All I know is that my list of errands ended up taking me three trips to finally complete.  Have you ever had one of those days?

The truth is, though, I really enjoyed myself.  I didn’t allow myself to get frustrated because I kept being interrupted and I just worked my way through the things I wanted to get done.  It truly made for a great day.

So as I was running my errands, I decided to stop by our local wholesale decorating store to see if I could find a fall wreath.  I didn’t really see one I wanted so I became inspired instead.  It’s been about 20 years since I have made my own wreath but yesterday I decided to try my hand at it again to see if I could do it.

No, I am not an expert.  No, I didn’t even google how to do it.  I just jumped right in and made up the rules as I went along.  Here are some of the things I learned during my self-taught wreath-making workshop:

1.  Find some interesting items to use on your wreath.  3-5 different types of things works well.

2.  Stock up on hot glue gun sticks because you need a lot to make sure everything is secured.

3.  Prepare yourself for getting burned with said hot glue gun sticks when you press leaves and things onto your wreath.

4.  Have a larger pair of wire cutters than I own because a lot of silk flowers have chunky wires in them that you end up having to bend back and forth a million times to get them to break.

5.  Use a sheet of felt to cut arc-shaped strips that you can glue to the back of your wreath so that it doesn’t scratch your door.

6.  When you are using small skinny things, consider putting them in a little bunches of about 5 flowers and tape them together with scotch tape at the base of the stems.  Then it’s easy to hot glue the bunch to the wreath instead of when they are separated.

7.  Work in a circle with small cuttings of your flowers and leaves but then to add some dimension, have something pop straight out from the wreath or go the opposite way.  As long as you blend the parts it will look fabulous.

Camilla Kimball said, “Never suppress a generous thought.”

And that leads me to my final tip for creating a successful wreath: Never suppress the thought to use a generous amount of supplies.  Seriously.  This could be the tip of all time when it comes to beautiful wreaths.  It seems like you can’t really go wrong if you don’t make it look too skimpy.  Sure, there are wreaths out there that are made to look minimal on purpose and they create a cool effect.  But in general, BE GENEROUS.  Create a wreath that bursts with personality – just remember to watch your fingers around that hot glue while you’re at it.

Thank you Camilla Kimball.  Thank you for those five simple words that can be applied to so many aspects of our lives – including crafting (I’m sure that’s exactly what she had in mind when she came up with such a beautiful sentiment).  Enjoy your wreath-making tips and the following download – this one will fit in your holiday frame (click here).

And especially, as the holidays approach…never suppress a generous thought.

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