Two Frugal Chicks

I get spring fever early every year and want to bring some color into the house. This project fit the bill perfectly and was a lot of fun and super cheap! I used supplies I already had around the house.  Here’s what you need:

Scrapbook paper – If you don’t have any scrapbook paper, Walmart has awesome tablets for $5!

Floral wire – I used  26 gauge ($1.47 at Walmart)
Elmers Glue
Branches from your yard
Scissors
Newspaper
Cardboard
Vase

First, go out to your yard and cut some branches and put them in a vase. I found that live branches worked better than dead ones as the dead ones would break easily.

Next, you need to make a leaf template.  I cut out two different sized leaves from a piece of cardboard.

Next, take a sheet of scrapbook paper and fold it in half.  Trace your leaf pattern using your templates.  Cut out the leaves, lots and lots of leaves.

Lay some newspaper down, take your Elmer’s glue and run a few strips on the back side of one of your leaves.  Lay a piece of floral wire down the middle of the leaf and lay the other half of the leaf on top, sandwiching the floral wire in between the two leaves. Make sure the floral wire extends at least several inches outside of the leaf, kind of like a tail.

 
Attach the leaves to the branches by wrapping the floral wire around the branches, like this….

Arrange the leaves in a natural leaf pattern, like this….

(See how the floral wire made it look like the leaf had a vein right down the middle, just like in nature).  Fill up your branches with your leaves till you like how it looks.  Here’s how mine turned out….I love it!

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Talk about super easy…you can make this wreath in less than 10 minutes. You will need two red feather boas, one foil/metallic Valentine’s garland, 3 straight pins and one styrofoam wreath form.  I bought the boas after Valentine’s Day last year on clearance at Big Lots and I used the Joann Fabrics iphone app to save 40% off of the garland and the styrofoam wreath form.  The total to make this wreath was less than $10.

I started by wrapping the boa and the garland around each other.  Then I secured one end with a pin to the wreath form and started wrapping the boa/garland around the form.  The garland was longer than the boa, so I attached another boa to the form with a pin, wrapped the garland around the boa, then wrapped the boa/garland around the form, just like I did with the first one.  I ended up having to cut the second boa almost in half as it was way longer than the rest of the garland.  I secured the end to the form with the last pin, and that’s it!  No sewing, no glueing, no measuring.  And I think its super cute!.