Graphic 45 and Petaloo Blog Hop - Day 5

Hello Eveyone
Today it is my turn along with two of my Graphic 45 Design Team Members and Irene from Petaloo,
Gloria Stengel: www.gloriascraps.blogspot.com
Betto Cesare: http://scrapguys.blogspot.com
Irene Tan: http://petaloo.typepad.com/
We all get to share our Petaloo and Graphic 45 projects.
Once I received my beautiful flowers from Petaloo. There was lots of different flowers to choose from. I knew I wanted to do a Christmas Wreath. I chose some of the larger red flowers and some smaller green ones. I wanted my wreath to be easy but also a challange. So that anyone who is just starting out could have a go, but also for someone who is looking for a challange. So I have come up with two options.


First is the easy wreath, its very pretty and quite quick to make. You can use it for a gift basket and fill with yummy goodies.

Then if your up for a challange, well the "optional" extra's on the wreath are for you. I have filled in the middle of the wreath with a scene from Nutcracker Sweet.
So lets get started, gather all your bits and pieces together. I found a bowl from a cheap shop for my wreath. It cost about $4, its about 10-11 inches across and is made out of wire. It is about 2 inches deep. I brought some gold tinsel, and Christmas ribbons. I choose my Graphic 45 print papers. I used 5 sheets of "Nutcracker Sweet". I also used "Holiday Magic" and "Enchanted Journey". In the photo below you can see the packets of Petaloo Flowers. I used the red and green ones.


Use a hot glue gun and adhere a row of tinsel around the edge of your bowl.

I hand drew a holly leaf and traced around it. I needed about 16 leaves out of "Enchanted Journey" and 40 leaves out of "Holiday Magic".


Ink around each of the leaves and put a slight bend along the middle of each leaf.


Using a hot glue gun adhere one cream leaf then two green ones.



Work your way around the wreath. Glue the leaves in a combination of one cream, and two green leaves.

Your wreath should look like this, once you are finished.

Chose a selection of flowers, tie some small bows with some Christmas organza ribbon and hot glue them to the back of your flowers. I did five flowers like this.


I found some old berries and pussy willow and added them to my wreath, then I glued the five flowers on. I only wanted them to fill in about 1/3 of the wreath.

I glued the five flowers on with about an inch gap between them. I then added some green Petaloo flowers in between the bigger red flowers along with some more Christmas ribbons.
That's the easy option, a perfect gift basket for a very special person.

For those of you wanting to fill in the middle of your basket, then here is what I did.


Cut a circle out of "Nutcracker Sweet" Cut some small nicks around the edges of your circle and put some pleats in the paper so it will fit in side your bowl.

Use your hot glue gun and adhere it to the bottom of your bowl underneath your holly leaves.


Now all you need to do is cut lots of the elements out of the "Nutcracker Sweet". From one sheet cut the curtains out of your print paper. Fold them along the lines of the pleats in the curtains. Cut out the purple banner from the bottom of your print paper.

From another sheet of "Nutcracker Sweet" cut out the tin soldier, Ballerina and clock holly.
From another sheet of "Nutcracker Sweet" cut out the bows on the curtains, the ballerina's dress, sleeve and arm, and head, also the tin soldiers head.
From your last sheet of "Nutcracker Sweet" cut out the clock.
Once you have all the pieces, lay them on top of the images on your bowl and work out how they will all fit. Use your hot glue gun and adhere the pieces. Each piece needs to be raised up. Follow the instructions below.
Adhere the curtains on at the top of your wreath lining it up with the picture on the base of your bowl. Don't worry if there is a gap at the top of your wreath. I glued some more leaves onto the wreath to hide the gap. Glue your banner on at the bottom of your wreath. It sits on top of the leaves and flowers. Glue the tin soldier onto the side of your wreath, it will only attach at the top and bottom. He sits right out, just under the leaves. Glue your clock on with the holly on top. Cut a strip of paper from your spare Graphic 45 print paper to one inch wide and 5 inches long. Fold it every one inch to make a cube. Glue it to the base of your bowl. This will allow you to glue your ballerina to your bowl so it sits an inch up from the base of your bowl.
You could keep adding more elements to your in soldier and ballerina if you want to.
Hope you have a go at making a wreath for this Christmas

thanks for looking.
Jane

Remember there is still a chance to enter to win an amazing Graphic 45 and Petaloo prize pack. Just leave a blog comment here and then hop over to the other design team members blogs and leave them a comment. Graphic 45 will be announcing one randomly chosen winner from the comments left on all the blogs on their blog on November 19th.