A little Door Decor

In honor of Earth Day, I turned 2 used boxes into some awesome door wreaths.  Here what less than $2 (and a good part of your day) can buy you.

Since the attempt at exercising my body hasn't worked out too well (severe back pain in the days following), I decided to exercise my brain.  With my hubby's return from 6 weeks away at training coming up, I thought a little home decor was in order.  I keep a pile of boxes in the laundry room for crafting purposes and I found the perfect use for a few of them a couple days ago.  I made 2 wreaths out of a pizza box, a mailing box, a bag of fabric scraps, leftover ribbon, hot glue and twine.  Total cost, less than $2.  No kidding. 

Here's a pictorial of the process with some vague details...

Step 1: Using a flat mailing box (mine was appx 11x14 and a half in thick, but you can use whatever you'd like) trace a sheet of printing paper (or whatever size paper you prefer) out of the center on both sides.  Next cut out the center using an exacto knife, razor, scissors, knife, or again whatever you prefer this isn't an exact science.  Don't discard the center, you'll need that later.  (It's not that I'm into recycling...I'm just frugal, saving mother earth is a bonus.)




Step 2: Cut out about a billion strips of fabric appx one inch wide and 6 inches long.  I may be exaggerating the amount of strips here.  Truthfully, the amount you need will depend on the size of the box you used and how thick you cut the strips.  I just cut about 10 at a time until I no longer needed them.  (You'll need about a half yard of fabric).  I was using scrap fabric, so I have no idea how much I had.

Step 3:  Wrap those pieces of fabric around the box and hotglue them on. Wrap and glue, wrap and glue, wrap and glue...

Step 4: Print off your template for your decor (I used a monogram of our last name and for the other wreath a Cincinnati reds logo) but again, you can do whatever you'd like here.  Next cut out the template and place onto the cardboard we set aside from step 1.

Step 5:  Trace onto BOTH pieces of cardboard and cut them out.  (If you have extra cardboard, a third layer wouldn't hurt).  Next hotglue the 2 layers together so you have one thick monogram or shape or whatever you chose to cut out.

Step 6: Get some twine (I got mine for a $1 from the dollar store, and have purchased it before from Sears for about a buck, don't go to craft stores and spend 3 times this price!!) Next wrap and hot glue the twine around your letter or shape.  Just wrap and glue (THIS PART TAKES FOREVER!). 

Finally: Hot glue your letter to some ribbon and attach ribbon to wreath.  ( I also used thumb tacks for additional strength) Leave some ribbon at the top to hang from the door.

After I finished my front door wreath, I was feeling pretty proud and a bit regretful I hadn't made my Cincinnati reds wreath in honor of baseball season.  So, I decided to hit up the cardboard stash and get to working on a wreath for the downstairs door.  Considering it opens to the man-cave, it's pretty fitting anyhow.  Here's my tutorial on wreath #2.

Step 1: Using the top off a pizza box (Papa Johns is my preference, but not necessary HEHE), trace some circles, one larger than the other.  I used a large bowl and a dinner plate. 

Step 2: Cut out the circles. The middle piece is your wreath form. :)  Following my trend from before...do not discard the center circle.  The outside I would say is safe to toss in the recycling bin...unless you have some future ideas.

Step 3: Using the same process from step 4 and 5 in the previous pictorial, I cut out my cinci logo.  I had to use some other cardboard from the stash because my circle wasn't large enough.  I covered this logo in ribbon instead of twine and hot glued on some dots from a hole punch for cuteness.

Step 4: Using the rag wreath process, I cut out strips of leftover fabric and tied them in knots around the wreath form.  I covered about 3/4ths of the from, leaving a small amount of space to cover with black fabric (using the same process as step 2 and 3 from above). I then hot glued on my logo in the blank space. 

Step 5: (Not shown) I felt it was still needed something.  So using the circle from the center, I traced the base of a cup and cut out the small circle.  Since the inside of a Papa Johns pizza box is already white (see why that was important) all I had to do was draw on the laces using a red permanent marker and *BOOM* I had a baseball. I glued the cardboard baseball onto the rag part of the wreath and hotglued on some ribbon for hanging.

I used these same basic steps for the wreath I made for Haileigh's birthday.