DIY Dollar Store Christmas Wreath

This is my first craft project post.  For those reading, welcome!  I’ll try to break this down in a way that makes sense.

I wanted to make a holiday wreath.  Well, that’s not strictly true.  I wanted to buy a holiday wreath, but then I went to the store and any kind of decent looking wreath was upwards of $40.  The good ones were $60.  On my poor, young-person-schlepping-in-LA budget, a wreath wasn’t something I’d spend more than a night out with friends on.  So I headed to my trusty local 99 Cent Only (we don’t have real dollar stores here, this is the best we’ve got, but it’s not a bad little store) and bought me some supplies.

That top black hose-looking thing is actually a piece of 3/8″ pipe insulation I bought for 58 cents at the same hardware store that had the $60 wreaths.  I saw somewhere on Pinterest that pool noodle + duck tape = cheap wreath form.  Done.

I realized while assembling the wreath that I had way more garland than I needed, so two of the snowflakey rolls didn’t actually go into the wreath, and one set of birds is still sitting by for another craft project (they were too darn cute to decide on one color).  So, by my math:

One pipe insulation: $.58

One roll pine garland (12 ft.), two bundles garland, one roll spherical silver ornaments, 2 packages geormetric star ornaments, 3 sunburst tree toppers, 1 package of 2 birds, and a wreath hanger (we’ll count the wreath hanger, since I didn’t have one, but you could probably wing it): $1 each = $11

Duck tape (enough to secure the wreath form), fishing line for attaching things to the wreath, and aluminum foil (optional, but I wanted to make my wreath super silver): essentially free, but we’ll call it at most, $1 of supplies

Total for one ridiculously decadent dollar store wreath: ~$12.50

Savings over boring store wreath: somewhere around $27

Hooray!  Let’s go!

I basically raided the dollar store and bought whatever looked good.  Or fun.  Or ridiculous.  That’s the fun of the dollar store.  I was thinking of going with a more traditional pine theme, but they didn’t have berries or anything sensible really, and their pine garlands were that tacky one-shade green, so I decided to go nuts with silver.  I taped up my wreath form, worried that the black was going to show through, and covered it with aluminum foil.  Foil you’d used for something else that was slightly crumply but not actually gross enough to be thrown out would be perfect for this project.

That’s my wreath form wrapped in foil.  It doesn’t have to look good, and don’t worry if the foil is coming off a bit because you’re going to be wrapping it a lot.  I just wanted my wreath to look full and silver and happy.

I wrapped my pine garland around the foil.  I wanted a little bit of green showing through, and this helped to secure the foil.

I wrapped the garland around the foil parts of the wreath, trying to cover the foil as best as I could.  I skipped the green parts so they peeked through.

I added some more garland, and then tied the little round ornaments around the wreath, attaching them to the greenery, leaving a space at the bottom for the birds.

I experimented with tying the star ornaments to the wreath and decided I liked them hanging from the top and bottom in the negative space of the wreath like they were “floating.”  The stars and ornaments together were probably too much, but I kept them because there’s no such thing as too much Christmas spirit, dammit!  This wreath was going to be excessively festive.  Or over the top.  Or something ridiculous.  I also started hanging it at this point (yes, that’s a clothes hamper, I didn’t have a lot of options) so I could see how it would look hanging off the door.  This helped with getting the stars right.

I really liked these sunburst-looking stars that were attached to ridiculous cones, apparently meant to be tree toppers.  Just add wire cutters and you have some cool, big, retro sunbursts for your wreath.

Sunbursts attached, also tied on with fishing line.  Again, probably excessive, but that’s never stopped me.

Almost done!  I still wanted to add the birds because they were so darn cute, and a little pop of color.

I messed with their wires and attached branches until I got them properly positioned, then tied them to the wreath.

I hung the whole mess on the door and am pretty happy with how it turned out.  Again, it’s pretty busy, but that’s kind of what I wanted.  I’ve never been good with minimalism, and Christmas decorations certainly won’t be where I start.

Happy Pre-Thanksgiving Christmas decorating!