evergreen wreath

The kiddo's school has a yearly fundraiser selling locally made (not by us) wreaths. I bought one last year and I bought one this year, and I'm fine with it. The wreaths are pretty and they smell good, and the school gets a nice chunk of the proceeds too, unlike with those magazine and candy sales I did as a kid.

Here's the thing: wreaths are relatively easy to make, and very inexpensive if you have access to evergreens. If you want more than one wreath for your house and school fundraisers are too expensive, give it a go. Here's one I made.

I used rosemary branches, some angry, pokey evergreen branches from a tree out back. and some little cedar twigs that got blown down in a windstorm.

 

The wire wreath form is from last year's wreath.  It's called a soft clamp wreath frame, if you need to order one. I just used some pliers to pull open the prongs last year, composting the old evergreens and storing the wreath form to recycle this year.

Add branches.

  

Use pliers to cinch everything together.

Tuck additional branches in to cover the wires, and hang it on a nail, ribbon or hook.

My wreaths sometimes look a little asymmetrical, which I like. If you don't, trim yours till it looks right to you.

Okay! That's all from here. Kid's got the flu so I'm off to do another load of laundry. Be well!

fancy old vintage frames

I've had these fancy old frames around for awhile, found at a flea market and a thrift store, respectively. I like them, but have never hung them up because the Mister isn't at all fond of them.

They are too fancy and old for his taste. Also too gold. But this one has awesome evidence of several layers of paint, built up over time. The mat is golden velvet. It's also a dimensional frame . . .

. . . the 45 degree angle of the molding strips make it 2.5 inches deep at the edges. The back of it is a lovely vintage green. Of course, if you hung it up, no one would ever see the back.

This one is more 1970s-style. I'm not convinced the ornamentation is wooden; it might be some sort of resin or gesso or something. It's hard to say!

It has a nice tone to the gold color, though, and if a person wanted too, she could probably mimic the old built-up-paint effect of the other frame.

The frame base is clearly wood, as you can see on the back, and its hanger is a pop tab! Such a clever use of recycled/reused materials. I saw someone use this trick on their blog awhile back; it's been around for awhile, as it turns out.

Anyway, if you like pretty gold vintage frames, you can hop over to my Etsy vintage shop (Night Garden Vintage), where these are now for sale.

Thanks for reading!


p.s. you can make these photos larger just by clicking on them, but you probably already knew that.

Linking up to:

Simple Design's Thrift Haul