As the heat wave in Atlanta continues, little Sam and I are seeking refuge indoors. With only about one outing a day, I’m getting a bit stir crazy. Luckily, he’s napping more during the day so I have a few hours at a time to dust off my craft supplies and indulge in little projects. And I have a lot of them to work on!

I’ve decided to be proactive this year and get a head start on holiday gifts. I don’t know about you, but the holiday season always sneaks up on me and I find myself in a rush to turn my various ideas into gifts. So, with a few weeks left of maternity leave, I’m getting started early. I’ll probably make some fabric and fleece wreaths again this year. I also have a few scarves and hats to get to work on…and yes, it’s quite strange to knit in the middle of the summer. Since I still have a lot of corks left over from my bath mat project, I thought I’d put them to good use and make wreaths out of them.

Oh yea….spoiler alert!! If you know me personally, you may find one of these under your Christmas tree…so, just act surprised or something.

It’s a pretty simple process, only involving corks, my hot glue gun and a straw wreath that I picked up from my local craft store. But, since I was only able to work on it while the little one napped, it took me a couple of days. Guess it’s a good thing I’m getting started early.

Here are some pics of the process…more posts to come!

starting supplies

I glued the corks onto the wreath in a random pattern.

*I found that leaving the plastic wrapping on the wreath helps the glue stick easier and makes for less clean-up. Tiny pieces of straw tend to fall off when the wreath is unwrapped and handled.

slowly making progress...

Once I had covered the wreath in corks, I grabbed some ribbon from my stash and tied a big bow at the top. I wrapped the ribbon a few times at the top creating a loop that the wreath can hang from.

And here it is:

ta-da!

side view

While it’s a little strange to tap into the holiday spirit in the middle of the summer, it feels great to have some time on my hands to use in an industrious manner. I have quite a few projects that I want to complete before going back to work, so stay tuned!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2012 at 10:36 am and is filed under art projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.