Patriotic Summer Wreath

Are you looking for a cheap and easy craft to spruce up your place for the summer holidays? This one is a real winner! Not only can you do this with your kids, a great fine motor builder, but you can use it for all the summer holidays, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Fourth of July. The best part, you can make your place festive for less than $20, which is less than any wreath I have found premade this year.

Last year we got a storm door for our house. It has been a tremendous improvement to our home. A substantial drop in our energy bills and even better, no more creepy crawlers scurrying in at night. What we didn’t account for, was that the airspace between our storm door and actual door gets so heated in the sunlight, that it actually melted our wreaths.

Looking for a wreath solution, I remembered a few years back I had seen and made a wreath I found on another blog site. If I could remember the site I would cite it here, sorry. Anywho, they made a birthday wreath for their child using similar style, I converted it into pinks and whites and reds for Valentine’s Day. Fast forward a few years, and I was thinking of the wreath when it occurred to me to update the color scheme to America and here we are.

Here’s what you will need to get started:

-1- 18″ Wreath Frame

-5- 9″X12″ sheets of Felt in Red

-5- 9″X12″ sheets of Felt in White

-5- 9″X12″ sheets of Felt in Blue

Optional:

I utilize a self healing cutting board and rotary cutter to make the strips faster, but plain old scissors will do the trick if you are patient!

Step One: Take each of the colors and cut into strips. Typically I will cut the sheets in half to make two 9″x6″ sections, then cut the strips at approximately 1″ thickness to make 1″x6″ strips. I do not measure each strip, but merely guesstimate. It does not matter if your strips are a little bit bigger or smaller, but I would not go drastically so as they will be harder to tie or more likely to rip

Step 2: Take one strip, I started with Red, and starting at the inner most ring of the wreath, tie the strip around the wreath. (Think like the beginning of tying your shoe.)

Step 3: Now continue tying with the other colors in order. Next I did white, then blue. Once you have tied the strips, slide them over close together. Continue until you have completed the innermost ring.

Step 4: Start with the next ring and repeat steps 2 and 3. I usually shift over one in the pattern, on the second ring I start on white. Continue until the second is completed. Then do the same for the third and fourth rings. I started the third on blue, and the fourth back on red.

Step 5: Enjoy your wreath!

Because it is literally just tying once you have the strips cut you can have your children help. Learning to tie is valuable exercise to refine those fine motor skills.

Given the repetition, this is also the perfect activity to do while binge watching your favorite show, or listening to an amazing audiobook.

Hope you like this one as much as we did, let us know how yours turns out.