Coat Hanger Christmas Wreath Or How To Make A Christmas Wreath

Click here to see how I collected branches and made another wreath

with a wire Christmas wreath base.

* Click On Photos To Enlarge *

Yesterday, I had the time to try out my DIY coat hanger wreath idea and take photos to show how to make the wreath. I bent two coat hangers into a circle shape, wrapped them together with wire and bent the top over. Yes, I know it looks weird and that's because the coat hangers were not the same size. Oh, well. I wired the two coat hangers together very well and tightly at the top.

This photo shows the coat hanger base.

This photo shows how I put the bundles together. Left to right: cedar, white pine, one piece of cedar. I put the cedar on the bottom, white pine in the middle and a piece of cedar on top. You can make the bundles anyway you want.

This photo shows how I hold the bundle while I put it together. When I can just cover the fingernail on my index finger with my thumb then the bundle is fat enough. If some of the pine is too long at the bottom I clip it to match the others.

I used wire to hook each bundle together.

This photo shows the first bundle wired securely to the top of the hanger. I didn't want to worry about the bundles sliding around the base so I made sure to use a lot of wire around the bundle, base and coat hanger top hook... (the part I bent that goes over the closet pole.)

This photo shows the amount of overlap I used. I overlapped and wired each bundle securely to the next bundle and to the base. I think next time I will use a little bit thicker and stronger wire. It took a lot of this thin wire before I felt the bundles were really secure. And next time I will overlap the bundles closer together. They were a little bit too far apart this time.

This photo of the back shows how the bundles overlap.

Halfway around!

Making bundles and wiring them together and having them ready to attach to the base made the whole operation move along much easier and quicker. I will make all the bundles first next time I do this.

This photo shows the space for the last bundle

with the pine pulled back to show the base.

This is the same spot with the pine covering the base. Pull the pine back and attach the last bundle. Or... if you are going to attach a large bow, pine cones, etc., then you can leave the space and attach the decorations there. I attached the bundle here.

Yay! Finished! I took a break to visit the chickens and to throw the pine cuttings I didn't use in the chicken pen. Morgan wants the chickens to come out and play. I have a photo I''ll post tomorrow of Morgan watching the chickens. It has been raining and even snowing which means the chickens will have to stay in their pen for a few more days.

After my break, I unpacked some Christmas boxes and found some old ornaments and a bow I used to decorate my coat hanger wreath.

Next time I make one of these I will be sure to make all the bundles ahead of time, make smaller bundles, use a bit thicker wire, and place the bundles a little bit closer together.

This wreath used 12 bundles. Next year for the same size base I will try using 13 bundles. Since I will wire each bundle individually, I will be able to place them around the base and see how the wreath will look before I wire them on one by one. Well, at least I will try it out and see how it works.

Another good thing about making all the bundles at one time is that it will make it easier to tell if I'm making all the bundles the same size.

I should have done a search on Google on how to make a coat hanger wreath. I just did a search and there are a lot of sites out there with information. I haven't read any of them yet but I think I will take a look at some of them before I make my next attempt at a coat hanger wreath.

 Click here to see how to make a wreath with a wire wreath base. 

with a wire wreath base.

[3 eggs today]

Smiles

~:>

Wreath Making!

Click here to see how to make a coat hanger Christmas wreath.


November thankful poem/song:


How much is that doggie in the window? (arf! arf!)

The one with the waggley tail

How much is that doggie in the window? (arf! arf!)

I do hope that doggie's for sale

Bob Merrill (click here to go to wiki) - Sung by Patti Page (click here to go to YouTube)

I'm grateful for Morgan and all the dogs in my life.


* Click On Photos To Enlarge *

Decorations and the base from last year's Christmas wreath.

How to make a DIY homemade pine Christmas wreath.

Today I walked around the property looking for different kinds of pine trees and taking photos. All I could find were cedar and white pine and this was the best photo of the cut cedar. No red pine! I was hoping to find red pine too because I think the wreath bundles look better with three kinds of pine and the red pine stays fresh longer so I like to put it on the top of the bundle sometimes. Instead of cutting the trees down I just went around and cut off the tips of the branches. White pine and cedar are OK, but they don't last as long as the red pine and I don't have any spray to help keep them from getting dried out. It has been very dry this year and the white pine is dry and thin looking.

One pile of cedar tips and one of white pine tips.

This photo shows how the tips are about the same length as the glove.

I use my glove as a guide when I'm out clipping the tips off the branches. It is important that the tips of the branches are all the same length. I hold the branch with the end of the branch at my finger tips and cut at the cuff edge. Not to stress! If later I find the tips are too long I just make sure the tops all line up fairly well and clip off the ends that are too long. But, if the tips are all pretty much the same length it makes bundle making much faster and easier. Some people gauge the cutting by the length of their spread hand from tip of little finger to tip of thumb. That's about 8 inches.

Next year when I make this wreath I will try making all the ten bundles up before I start adding them to the wreath. That way I will be able to tell more easily if they are the same size and putting the wreath together may go faster.

One bundle ready to be clamped.

For this wreath I started layering white pine tips in my left hand and then layered cedar tips on top. I stop when I can just overlap my thumb over the fingernail on my pointer finger. I like to try making bundles with different kinds of pine and alternating kinds of bundles. First a bundle of cedar, then white, etc., experiment making bundles and find what works.

First bundle clamped.

It is harder to use pliers to fold the prongs over. Usually I use a foot operated clamp. The photo shows the prongs are set around the base about a finger length apart. I am careful not to get the ends of the bundle in the next set of prongs. When I make up my own base out of coat hangers I will keep the same spacing between the bundles. You can see how the next bundle will overlap the bundle that is already clamped.

Almost done.

Finished. Well except for the decorations.

I could have used Christmas ornament, dried flowers or seed pods. I was thinking it would be fun to decorate a wreath for a dog owner and add dog toys or other items that people like.

It was getting dark and the chicken coop was the place with the most sunlight. And yes, I asked Morgan to stay there. I think she wonders what I'm doing. Morgan is clean and white! She just got back from the groomer!

Thursday I will try making a wreath using coat hangers as a base along with wire to anchor the bundles. That will be an experiment. Hope it works. I'll try! Back to work tomorrow.

Click here to see how to make a coat hanger Christmas wreath.

[2 eggs today]

The chickens have been locked up since the fox attack.

They want out!

Smiles

~:>

Happy New Year 2009! and DIY

Well, almost... it is still Dec. 31st, but I don't plan on being up to post at midnight. So, I'm wishing us all a happy, healthy, prosperous New Year!

Here is a one day old Brahma chick to help bring in the New Year.

Peep, Peep, Peep!

We are going to celebrate with Pizza fresh from the best pizza

joint in town... well, the nearest town. I'm not looking forward to hearing gun shots and the sound of fireworks at the stroke of 12. Well, at least with the snow bits laying around I won't have to worry about any fire danger. Maybe this year things will be quieter. hope hope

After I have some pizza and post this, I'm going to make lemon curd, because we received a bunch of free home grown lemons and Fuyu persimmons. I have to do something with the

lemons... there is always lemonade, but I'll resort to that only if I mess up the lemon curd. Next I 'll have to figure out what to do with the persimmons. I tried one and it was so sweet! Kinda like a very, very, very sweet cantaloupe. I think they are 25% sugar. I need to find stove top recipes because the oven is not online. I'll let you know how it all turns out... hopefully with photos.

I said I would post about the Christmas quilts, so I will begin at their beginning: a photo of the hand pieced beige block and one of the layouts of the blue and yellow. My sewing machine broke and I began hand piecing the beige block out of scraps from the wedding quilt. I found that I loved hand piecing. I don't think I did a great job of it because it was my first attempt, but there is something very satisfying about holding the fabric close and taking your time sewing. When piecing or quilting, I hold the fabric in my hands and lap, no hoop, and use quilting thread and a long size 10 Milliners needle. I would like to use a size 11, but I can't thread the things. I try for even stitches and get about 5 to 7 per inch if you count the stitches on one side.

I wish I had been able to learn to quilt from someone in my family, but I learned mostly from searching for helpful quilt sites on the internet. I'm glad I did because I have found that my quilting leans heavily toward what is called Liberated Quilting. I do love traditional quilt patterns, but even more I love making up my own quilt patterns. I have only made three quilts. The wedding quilt was from a pattern, but the other two were from blocks I made from patterns, some blocks I made up, and then arranged them the way I wanted.

I have decided that if I want to get a quilt finished quickly I need to machine sew, and that is OK too. I have a new sewing machine that I love called The Heart Truth. Pretty nifty machine with 50 stitches and it makes great button holes. I'll have to get a photo of it and make a Heart Truth post. The sewing machine in the photo is of my old Singer Touch and Sew... the one that jammed. sniff sniff

I have included a photo of my built-in ironing board (from an old house in San Francisco) that I built into the wall here in my book/computer/sewing room. That was a fun DIY project.

Here you can see that while sitting in the chair I have access to the computer, sewing

machine and ironing board. Pretty neat! I built the shelf out of old doors and put the bookshelves on top. Needs painting.

The books are due to be sorted through this year and the dead computers need to be fixed or taken to where ever dead computers and monitors go to lead their afterlife.

I am going to try and post 5 photos with this post, if that doesn't work I will post the photos by themselves. I'll get the hang of this eventually. oh yeah (PS ... my daughter informs me that 5 photos are too much for blogger to handle, but I am trying anyway. So far I have three photos posted, but the two of the quilts keep going poof... Yea! I just got the last one! Save Now! Bye)