So out with the greens and jingle bells and in with a wintery look to herald the new year.
STEP One: Gather supplies. I'd been researching lots of pretty felt wreaths. Some of my favorites are absolutely covered in colorful felted wool balls. Adorable. Also pricey. Maybe if I'd not bought acres upon acres (should I say kilometers?) of ribbon and a giant (huge. I think I could bathe Baby Sister in it) glass bowl from a store's display sale when out with Big Sister, I could justify one. But DIY is more fun anyway. It is sort of like catering a party (not that I see that in my future). I'm just not sure how you could take pride in it. But that's also because I can't cook and thus don't really throw dinner parties. If you do, and they are catered, by all means please invite me. I won't judge while I gobble up the professionally delicious goodies and I'm sure you will have done lots of things to make the evening special. In my defense, I do make yummy appetizers, love to bake themed cookies and aspire to a wedding cake. Also the Mister is super in the kitchen. If you are one of our smalls or invited to dinner at our flat, chances are he'll feed you. I'll serve you mulled wine and send you home with a clever favor.
This season seems to be filled with lovely felt pretties. For the first time, the children drew names to purchase each other presents. Big Brother surprised Big Sister with a felt ladybug (her nickname. It is a "ladybird" here. Of course even Big Sister's nickname is different in British English) purse from a German Christmas market. Without knowing what she was getting, Big Sister bought Baby Sister a felted mushroom purse from another market!
And I have it on good authority (with amazing pictures to prove it) that the Obamas had lots of felted Christmas decor in this year's White House. Including a felt version of their dog, Bo. Also marshmallow, button, and licorice Bos. That is cuteness in ascending order. I have to just pause, catch my breath, and maybe take a knee, in honor of the adorableness of projects involving felt, marshmallows, buttons, and licorice. You know that was someone's job to come up with those ideas. And some very fortunate teams of people got to put them on display. I am almost overcome with envy, only made better by my girlfriend sending me the photos and sharing the great ideas.
My. So back to the wreath. That is not part of the White House. Second to the felt ones, the yarn wreaths I saw seem so cozy. Like a favorite sweater. So I bought a few balls of fluffy grey yarn (one skein will do. I bought 3, so here's hoping a knitter will browse my favorite charity shop next week!), finally found a wreath form (for the love of Amazon), and nabbed a few sparkly snowflakes from the tree before we took it down.
STEP Two. Gracious. Are you still reading? Did you doze there and come to only to discover I'm only on the second step? Apologies. Grab some coffee and press on. It will go faster now, I promise. Wrap wreath form in yarn. Best to have some company to chat with for this step. It takes a bit. The fluffier the yarn the less particular you have to be about keeping the lines straight.
STEP Three. Have sweet niece and nephews send you precious yarn wrapped ornaments that you can't bear to put away with Christmas decor. Keep the star one out and make it the centerpiece of your wreath. Use painter's tape to hold it to the wreath hanger.
STEP Four. Risk upsetting the Mister by glueing favorite snowflake ornaments onto wrapped wreath. I thought briefly that since the fluff of the yarn gripped the sparkles in the ornaments that maybe I could do without glue but think the motion of the door would be too much and knock them off. That would be annoying and we'd likely step on the ornaments strewn on the floor. So glue.
STEP Five. Impress little ladies.
No comments:
Post a Comment