Belated Christmas Crafts Part II: DIY Vintage Reflector Wreath

For Christmas, I finally got around to making a wreath out of vintage reflectors. These decorative shapes cut out of metal (I believe either aluminum or tin) were manufactured to fit big old-style Christmas bulbs and reflect the light outwards. The ones I found on Ebay and Etsy came in pink, blue, silver, gold, green, and red.

Some came attached as doubles, and some were singles that I had to mix and match myself. They tend to be in star, flower, or starburst shapes.

Since I didn't take pics along the way (crafting with a kid who might wake up from his nap any second is more about speed than anything else and winter light is awful anyways!), here's a rough guide to how I did it:

*First, buy some vintage reflectors. I sourced mine on Etsy and Ebay. They aren't cheap as they're currently very popular, but you only need 9 double or 18 single shapes. (I had enough leftover from the large batches I bought to make a wreath for my mom as well. Lucky her!)

*.Buy a cardboard wreath frame that's fairly sturdy. I got mine at Papersource. (Dangerous store to walk into - you've been warned!) Pick a paint color you like, and paint your frame. I went with white. You'll probably need a couple of coats. Let dry between coats.

*Buy a short strand of LED lights. I think my strand only had 12 lights. Since we're working with paper and glues, go the safe route and use LEDs. They don't heat up so the fire risk is very low. Obviously, don't leave lights on when you leave your house/apt. I found ones with a battery pack from Home Depot for less than $10. (However, they turned out to be TERRIBLE and I'm currently trying to find a better replacement. I'll talk about this more later.) I went with a battery pack so I wouldn't need to hang it near an outlet, allowing me to display it on a door. Just hide any extra length on the back of the frame or loop it around, and then attach your battery pack to the back with glue or strong tape.

*If you have any singles you need to match up, use very strong glue to attach together. I want to say I tried hot glue at first but found it popped off over time. So I switched to a very small amount of Gorilla Glue. This stuff expands a LOT so try to put it on the underside of your inner shapes a bit away from the inner edge and not close to the outer edge so it won't show once it's dry. Follow safety directions on the glue.

*Lay out your doubles on your wreath frame until you find an order that you like. You want a good variation in both background/outer color and liner/inner color for your double reflectors. Make sure they're evenly spaced. You might have to spin them around so they fit together better (especially for the starburst shapes). I tried to do a sequence of three background colors, and then form triangles across the wreath of inner colors while also varying the shape. Buying extra reflectors can make this easier.

*Mark the inside opening of each with a pencil dot. Set aside reflectors.

*Be super-scientific/safe (sarcasm) and start each hole with a nail that you whack in with whatever heavy object is nearby. I might've used a stapler (don't be me: find a safer way).

*Once the nail is through to the other side, take your pencil and start working it into the hole. Get the tip in, then start spinning it around back and forth til the hole enlarges. I don't know why this works to enlarge the hole, but it does. (See: super scientific/safe process.) Have a firm grip on your frame so it doesn't buckle as you do this.

*Using a bulb from your LED strand to check the width of the hole as you go, enlarge until your bulb fits tightly into the space from the underside of the frame. You might have to pop off the top and just use the socket to get it into the hole from below, then you can replace the light from the top once it's in.

*Do this for every hole.

*Remove any lights, and glue on your reflectors around each hole in the order that you chose. I went with Gorilla Glue for this.

*Once it's dry, use an x-acto knife or other tool to remove any expanded glue you don't want to see. Paint any remaining bits/bits that won't come off your wreath color (so I used white).

*Replace lights, add batteries or plug-in, and hang! You could add a ribbon loop for hanging. I just banged in a nail and then rested the top of the inner circle of the wreath on it. Up to you!

*A note on the lights I used: a downside to LED lights is that they aren't as bright as regular lights. (You can barely see mine in daylight.) Mine also only lit up in certain areas, I think because of the way they hung when I put it up on the wall. So maybe buy a couple different strands and see what works best.

DIY Knitted Winter Wreath

I know wreaths are usually associated with Christmas, but I created this knitted winter wreath with an eye towards having one I could display all winter long. It's Christmas-appropriate but also perfect for displaying during the frosty, freezing winter doldrums when all you want to do is huddle under a million blankets and drink your weight in hot chocolate. (New England, I have such a love/hate affair with you!)

I'm going to give you a general outline, so that you can customize this to your taste. I'd advise using what you already have. It's a great scrap yarn project!

I had a thick (either Aran or Bulky weight, I believe) almost curly off-white yarn sitting around. I cast on varying amounts of stitches (I want to say 7 for the smaller one - aka the inner one shown above - and 10 for the larger one) on size 13 needles. Then I knit in i-cord until it was a length I was pleased with.

Now, since I used large needles, my i-cord is a bit hole-y/lace-y. I knew my stuffing would match the yarn pretty closely and only be noticeable close up, so this was intentional. Why cast on more stitches and make a tighter tube if it won't show? (Also known as, I was being lazy. I'm okay with that.)

Here's a close-up of my two i-cord tubes. For the rest of this tutorial, I'll be using the larger one. I decided I liked it better.

I had some polyfill laying around, so I used a long, straight knitting needle to pack it in. I wanted this to not sag when hung up, so I stuffed it pretty tightly. If you don't mind a little drooping, stuff it less. There's no right or wrong way! Then stitch the ends of your tube together. I chose to sort of graft them into one continuous tube, rather than closing both ends and then connecting them. You could do it either way, this one is just a bit faster.

Choose a ribbon, and either use a large needle (like a tapestry one) to pull it under a loop so it's secure when you tie a bow or make a bow and then hot glue it on.

Trim the ends to whatever length you like, and voila! I thought gold and white would be nice winter colors, but use what you have. You could do light blue and white, red and white, gray and white, ice blue and light gray, etc.

Here's my finished wreath! The whole thing took me less than two hours so you could whip one up in a day as well.

DIY Fall Leaf Garlands and Wreath for Fall and Thanksgiving

Would you believe me if I told you these colorful leaves were made out of coffee filters? Yup - that's the simple secret to their crinkly texture and brown undertones! I ran about 50 natural brown coffee filters under the tap and then spread them out flat to dry in single layers (if possible, if not, stack them in piles of two or three and rotate which ones are on top every half-hour or so) on cookie sheets around the kitchen. If you have a gas stove with pilots, putting the sheets over the burners helps speed up the process - just keep a careful eye on them! (Or maybe I'm just still wary of open flames - I grew up with electric ovens.)

Next, I made leaf stencils out of paper and used them to cut out leaves from the dried filters. This is the part that, to be honest, is kind of a pain in the butt. It's time-consuming and it can be difficult to get all the curves and corners, but it's worth it in the end! If you have a Cricut (sp?) or another die-cutter, you could give it a whirl instead of cutting each one out by hand. I made four stencils: two types of oak leaves, a maple leaf, and a fruit tree leaf. Cut as many as you think you will need - I think I got two or three big leaves out of each filter, and ended up with about 25 of the oaks and maple and 50 of the fruit tree (since they were smaller).

Then came the fun part: painting them! I used watercolors in shades of brown, red, orange, and gold. I tried to make some areas lighter and some darker, to imitate real leaves. I initially painted them after gluing them into garlands, but then I realized doing it the other way (paint each one first, then glue together) was probably much easier. If you do it the first way, you have to make sure you get under each leaf and sometimes the wet paint made them stick together in other places.

I glued the maple and oak leaves into garlands. You could mix them if you like, I just chose to use a single type for each. I used a glue stick and rotated the first one 45 degrees left from center, the second below it 45 degrees right from center (so 90 degrees from the first after), the third below it 45 degrees left from center (90 degrees from the second leaf), etc. You could use the same angle, or do them in a straight line. You could rotate them even more, too - just play around with them until you get something you like!

Close-up of the maple leaves that I painted bright red.

Close-up of the gold oak leaves - you can see where I missed a spot as I painted them post-gluing. Oops!

Once your garlands have dried, use them around the house for decorations! Here, I overlaid them on a table and then added a pumpkin and silver candles (DIY coming later in November) for a festive display.

You could also put the garlands up on the wall, hang them down a door or doorway, or string them along a mantle. Since they're not Halloween-ish at all, you can use them from the beginning of fall through Thanksgiving - they're very versatile!

To make your Thanksgiving table even more festive, you could run the garlands down the length of the table, add a silver vase of brown and white feathers (or mallard green ones) in the middle, and then add in small gourds, pumpkins, dark purple artichokes, pomegranates, bright red apples, or small silver dishes of nuts for extra pops of color.

Here's a close-up of the garlands overlapping.

Instead of candles, you could add fall lanterns as well. I made these out of mason jars, contact paper stencils, and etching cream. Then I placed an LED light inside. These lanterns will be in the next DIY post!...

I turned the fruit tree leaves into a wreath. Storage space is at a premium in our city apartment, so I wanted fall decor that would store flat to maximize space. This is bright and perfect for the season but will take up barely any space in the closet come Christmas - perfect! I painted the leaves just like the other ones, then arranged them in layers of three around a wreath form. I made my own out of cardboard using a big plate for the outer edge and smaller one for the cut-out part in the middle, but you could use one from a craft store. I just didn't have one handy (and again, I wanted something more 2D). I curled some of the leaves up using a pencil to give the wreath a little more dimension, and then added a bow of gold ribbon.

Close-up of the wreath.

Here are three of the stencils I used (the fruit tree one seems to have gone missing, but it's easy to recreate). You may use these for your own projects (resize them when you print them to suit your project) but please don't resell them or use them for commercial projects without written permission from me. Thanks!