Wood Slice Wreath

We're on a roll here with these wood slice projects, this time a wreath. Again super simple and inexpensive.  

The wreath. For the base of the wreath have about 12-15 slices of wood roughly the same size.  My base slices were about 4 inches across so how many you need will depend on how large you want your wreath and how big they are.  Lay them out on the table in a circle arranged so that they have the most surface edge touching.  Hot glue the pieces where they touch and this is the base of the wreath.  By itself it will not be sturdy enough, this is where the smaller slices come in.  Lay them over the middle of two of the base layer slices and glue the heck out of them.  Do this all the way around and there is no way this wreath is coming apart.  Keep adding slices to add depth and dimension.  

The bow.  Making a perfect bow is difficult at best, especially if you are working with a stiff material like burlap.  For this reason I don't even try and no one will know the difference.  The bow on this wreath is made of four pieces.  Two for the loops and two for the streamers that hang down.  Hot glue is again your friend for making this look like it is the perfectly tied bow. The hot glue also insures that this bow isn't going anywhere.  Add an adornment and it's done.

The cost. Others of these I have seen made had a store bought base. I skipped that part for two reasons.  First, I would have to wait to make this until I had a chance to go into town and I'm not even sure where you buy such a thing so I would have to go looking around.  And second, it would add to an already heavy project.  Unless you know you are hanging this where there is a stud in your wall, over time it will make a large hole in dry wall.  Also it needs more than a picture frame nail to hang it up. The slices Dad cut for me from downed branches in the yard.  I have seen these slices in craft stores for an insane amount of money.  If you don't have a table saw to cut your own, do some networking in your neighborhood, someone must have some sort of saw that will cut these for you. Bring them some fresh baked cookies if they seem hesitant.  The pine cones I had in the craft closet that I picked one day when we were geocaching, so free.  The ribbon I got on clearance at Walmart.  It wasn't the right size so I had to cut it. Don't let the wrong size ribbon keep you from a good deal.  The ribbon was $1.50 and I used about a quarter of it making the final cost of the wreath 37 cents plus however much hot glue you use. 

  

  

We made a bunch of these for a church festival and added fake flowers and ribbon.  This made them a little more expensive, but not by much as we were able to use store coupons.  This one we added a couple painted wood pumpkins and a couple of spiders Dancer made.