Welcome Home Wreath

Awhile back I was thrilled to think that maybe I'd inherited my Great Grandpa Burton's poetry writing gene when I wrote a little poem called Welcome to My Home.  All along my intent was to frame it in a $1 store frame that was decorated with flowers and ribbons to make a wreath-type decoration for my future front door.

Except that I couldn't find flowers and ribbons that I like...

And so I ended up making the flowers from fabric and ribbon.  That was kind of an adventure!

Directions here.  Scroll down about 1/3
of the way to find the round pouf variation.

I made these round poufs, 2 from blue plaid fabrics and 1 from a golden yellow print.  For future reference, choose a fabric that is colored similarly on both sides.  The yellow has a definite front and back and since both show when you fold the circles you can see the pale and not so attractive back of the fabric on that flower.

Directions here.

I also made 3 of these 2-layered stars from a deep golden yellow satin ribbon that also makes up the middle layer of loops in my bow.  The website is in what I think might be Russian but I was able to follow the diagram successfully.  Because it's what I had, I used 5 iridescent large-sized seed beads in the center.

And finally, I made 5 flowers from the same sheer ivory ribbon as in the bow by cutting about a 9-inch length and running a gathering stitch along one edge.  Pulled tight, it looks like a pleated circle.  The same iridescent seed beads make up the centers.

I printed the poem in a pretty font on ivory cardstock using navy blue ink and slipped it into the frame after carefully cleaning the glass. Then the flowers were arranged and hot glued to the frame with some leaves cut from a spray of red berries I picked up after Christmas to finish another project.  The bow is a mix of the yellow and ivory ribbon with long tails tied in a half-knot at the end.  At some point, I may try to tuck in either some fine ribbon or flowers in a deep denim-y blue just to pick up that color a little more.

Now to pull me together and get that future front door/entryway...