Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Save or Splurge: Sunflower Wreath

 I love making wreaths for my front door.  I love having something cheerful on my door at all times and realized I didn't really have any great options for August/September.  I have a pretty Fall wreath, but it felt too early to put it out so I'll save it for October/November.

I started looking for inspiration on Pinterest and shopping around on-line.  Most sunflower wreaths I saw for purchase were around $100.  That's way over my wreath budget and I knew I could make one for cheaper than that.  Here were my inspiration screen shots all from Pinterest


 I loaded up the kids and we headed to Hobby Lobby.  That isn't the most kid friendly store in the world, but we made it work.  Their tiny carts only hold one big kid and there's no way a car seat would fit in there.  Plus there aren't any cart stalls in their parking lot so I'd have to lug both kids into the store.  I opted to do a stroller and have a pep talk with Olive about being a big girl so she's walk with me.  It's new territory for us to have her walking around freely in a store.  She's learning how to stay with us and to keep her hands to herself so I chalked the whole thing up to a good learning experience.  Both kids were good as gold so it was a fun outing for all of us.


All of the Fall decor and Fall florals were 40% off last week so I stocked up on them.  I picked out the wreath first and then started gathering flowers and other fun things for the wreath.  I used my Hobby Lobby app coupon to save 40% off the grape vine wreath since it was full price and then almost everything else I got was on sale, too.  

I got all the greenery, flowers, wreath and such for $42!!

5 large flowers, 3 sets of small sunflowers and several different varieties of greenery.  I used the leaves that were on the sunflower stems to add touches of green instead of buying additional greenery.  I also used some burlap ribbon that I purchased from Sams in the Spring.  I already had hot glue and a glue gun so that part was free.


The finished product!  
I love how it turned out, love the price and love driving up to my house to see this cheerful wreath on the door.  Olive told me, "I fink it has too many flowers" but I think that was mostly because she was hoping I'd let her keep some sunflowers to play with.  She helped me make the wreath and I gave her jobs like pulling flowers off the stem, let her cut up leaves I wasn't using and had her help me count things.  She loved it and I kept the glue gun far away from her since I can barely manage to do a project without burning myself.

It's not perfect, but I felt good about crafting for an hour during Fletcher's nap time and it felt good to spend my time making something pretty for the house.  I've mostly spent my free time unpacking lately so this was just the change of pace I needed.

Do you like to make or buy things to hang on your front door?

Other deal tips for wreaths: I've purchased wreaths in the off season on clearance, bought monogrammed seasonal things off of Groop Dealz and bought wreaths and Goodwill to redo for a great deal. 

14 comments:

  1. Your wreath looks professionally made! And the pop of color looks so good with your door color--great job! My sister had a sunflower wreath made last year for her front door and I love the look of it!
    Sarah at MeetTheShaneyfelts

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh Whitney you knocked this one out of the park. It is GORGEOUS. I have never thought about Hobby Lobby as being not kid friendly but you are totally right. That place can be terrifying with small children.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am TOTALLLLY stealing this idea for next year. I have something on the door now and have 3-4 wreaths I rotate in September - November so... this will have to be my new wreath for Summer next year.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love love love it!! I've made burlap wreaths, but haven't ventured out past that. This looks great! I still have a daisy wreath up from spring. I bought one for the 4th but it had already past. I'm too scatter brained at Hobby Lobby because I want everything!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your wreath turned out fabulous! I always love making my own with my mom - that way you can make it just how you want! Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Beautiful job! I almost always buy the supplies to make a wreath myself because I know I can generally always make it a lot cheaper. Gorgeous wreath!

    ReplyDelete
  7. The wreath turned out beautiful. I really love the ribbon and I think the sunflower wreath is a great transition into fall. Look at you going out with both kids in a not so easy setting. I'm glad you were able to craft during Fletchers nap time and you had such a fun helper. Jack is all about counting things these days. Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  8. wow you did a great job! Mine would look all wonky, I'm sure. :-) sunflowers were a perfect choice for late summer! I have a few wreaths but don't put them up often. our house is one of those that the garage sticks out further than the front door, so we mostly go in through the garage. It's one of those weird things I'm actually bummed about with this new house, we just never see or really use our front door.

    ReplyDelete
  9. LOVE how this turned out! I was just thinking about buying a late summer/early fall front door wreath but now you've inspired me to do one myself. It turned out great, Whitney!! And we're learning the walking/no touching in stores thing too. Tough but fun when they're walking all on their own. It's so cute and "big girl" :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Your wreath turned out FABULOUS and I absolutely LOVE the way the yellow from the sunflowers pops against your turquoise door!! SO PRETTY!

    ReplyDelete
  11. It looks so good! I love the polka dot ribbon!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Very nice!!
    ---Retired from the Floral Industry in Indy.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Wow! You did so well making your wreathe! I'm in love with it. Make me one! xoxoxo

    ReplyDelete
  14. You did a great job on the wreath. It turned out very pretty.

    ReplyDelete

I LOVE hearing from you!! Thanks for taking the time to leave sweet comments; I enjoy reading every one of them.