DIY Easter Wreath

This year the kids and I made our first “from scratch” wreath ever!  I have been mulling over several DIY Easter wreath ideas I’ve seen on Pinterest.  We ended up incorporating some of the elements of our favorite wreaths in one simple wreath that is all our own.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to do a wrapped yarn wreath–mainly because I have three Extra Large space bags full of yarn.  For some reason, I have a natural aversion to throwing away printed books (thank God for ebooks!) and for disposing of yarn.  It makes me feel twitchy whenever I think about throwing out yarn, even though I can never find the yarn I need for a project and often end up going out for the right skein…and coming back with three or four extra skeins.  In my effort to declutter, I have decided to simply use the yarn for kids crafts and other projects since I am not advanced enough in my minimalist goals to actually get rid of it.

Spring always makes me think of the color green so I went with a nice bright green yarn to wrap the foam ring.

I wanted to make the yarn eggs used in this Easter Egg Wreath tutorial but I wanted something a little less simple and I wanted to use the yarn I had on hand, rather than embroidery floss.  Normally I like to do quick and easy projects with the kids but decided to do this one in several quick and easy steps instead since we had a whole week for spring break to work on it.

Materials:

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1. 14″ foam ring(I printed a Michaels 40% off coupon from here first)
2. Green yarn I had on hand
3. water balloons (from the dollar store)
4. 1 cup of sta-flo liquid starch
5. 1/2 cup of flour
6. pastel yarn I had on hand
7. basket from the dollar store
8. old stuffed chick from Pea’s collection
9. “Welcome” balsa wood sign from craft store ($.89)
10. pink acrylic paint that I had on hand
11. foam brushes
12. hot glue gun

How we made it:

First we took turns wrapping the green yarn around the foam ring.  They got tired and bored so I did the majority of it.

Then we blew up balloons.  Pea was delighted that she finally had the lung capacity and dexterity needed to blow up a balloon.  Pork Chop wouldn’t be out done so he blew some up too.  I completely exploited their competition and excitement so I wouldn’t have to blow them up.  I still had to tie the suckers though.

(They had a great time popping the ones we didn’t need.)

Mix half a cup of flour with a cup of the liquid starch.

I cut the yarn in six inch pieces and the kids tried to wrap the balloons.  It didn’t work so we scrapped the pieces (ouch) and started with very long strands of yarn.

Loosely loop the yarn into the bowl so it doesn’t get all tangled.  Submerge in the “glue” mixture.

Wrap yarn around the balloons.  The kids did half of them before getting tired of having their hands dirty.  I enjoy papier mache so doing the rest was relaxing for me.

We let them dry.  It took almost two days for it dry because we heavily saturated the yarn and didn’t really squeeze any excess off.

We tied the basket to the wreath.

I painted the welcome balsa wood sign pink, at Pea’s insistence.

Pulled a chick out of Pea’s closet and got her permission to use it.

Placed the yarn Easter eggs in the basket with the chick.  (I hot glued the chick’s butt to the back of the basket which really made Pea mad.)

I then hot glued the welcome sign to the wreath.  The kids were very particular about where everything should be placed on the wreath.  This was truly a collaborative effort.  (I wanted the welcome to be at a slant and was told that it looked UGLY that way.)

We hung the wreath on the front door with a ribbon accent and Voila!  It’s our first Easter Wreath!  I love that it’s simple, cute and that we made it together.  It was easy enough for a Preschooler to make and we had fun.

The kids and I hung up our Egg Suncatchers and decorated our tree with plastic eggs.  My daughter doesn’t think our house has enough Easter decorations so we are working on a little something coming up.

You might also like:

These adorable rustic Easter Decorations!

The cutest Easter Bunny Wreath

Easter to Spring Wreath