Thanksgiving Decorations- Denim Rag Wreath

I started off this week planning on making something completely different for today. I saw this super cute wreath that looked like a scarecrow, but two things happened that changed my plans. First, despite an extensive search, I couldn't find a straw hat anywhere. The straw hat was kind of essential for what I was going to do. I did, however, find a super cute miniature scarecrow that I think is supposed to be a front yard ornament. Also, I had to get rid of some of my old pairs of jeans because I wore out the inner thighs, (the struggle is real, people) and I had the extra denim fabric. I decided to change tactics and made a rag wreath instead. I found a full tutorial on rag wreaths here if you're interested.

Supplies:

-Wire wreath frame

-Seasonal fabric, cut into ½” x 9” strips

-Denim fabric, cut into ½” x 9” strips

-Burlap ribbon

-Miniature scarecrow

-Hot glue gun

I found these cute little fabric squares at Walmart and they have seasonal patterns a little 18 by 24 inch bundles. I tore the fabric into 1/2 inch strips. Cutting is messier than tearing them, surprisingly, and you can get much straighter lines from just tearing down the fabric. Below I have a picture comparing what the lines look like when cutting as opposed to tearing the fabric. It also gives it more of a worn look, which is kind of the goal when making a rag wreath.

I also tore the denim fabric into 1/2 inch to one inch strips. I used two pairs of jeans for this project, one dark, and one light. The fabric of the lighter fabric tore very easily, but I did have some difficulty with the darker pair. It occurred to me afterwards that it was probably because the dark jeans were the stretchy kind and the light ones weren’t. Once they were in the strips it didn’t seem to matter, but I did notice a difference while I was making the fabric strips.

Once I had all of my strips I cut them so that they were 9 in in length. If they're a little bit longer it's still looks good, it’s just an approximation. I then attached them to the wire wreath frame two pieces a time, one of the normal fabric and one of the denim alternating between tying to the two smaller posts and the two larger posts this creates a ruffle pattern that makes the wreath look fuller. I'm sure it would look good if you just did either of the denim colors randomly but I really like patterns so I put all of the dark blue denim on the two outer rings and all of the lighter denim on the to enter rings and I think that it created a really nice balance of color. The pattern fabric added a really nice splash of color to it as well. this was probably the most tedious part of this project because really all you're doing is tying small knots around a big circle but the end result is impressive.

Now it's time to start working on the bow. I took my burlap fabric with the wired sides and made three large loops. The third loop should be slightly smaller than the other two to create a second layer in the bow. Once I had the basic shape of my bow together I took a hot glue gun and attached the pieces together one by one. I then glued my little scarecrow buddy to the top of the bow and then glued the bow on to the top of the wreath.

From start to finish this project took me just under two hours. once you figure out the basics of how Reed's work they actually are all very simple to make I love the colors on this, and I love the fact that I was able to recycle two of my old pairs of jeans. my scarecrow was another lucky dollar store fine and I was very happy to have him. since this wreath is made from scrap pieces of fabric it's very difficult to go wrong with it.

Working on kids crafts next week. Yay!