I Can Hear the Ocean...

As part of my recovery I had to walk. I had to walk, a LOT. I could think of no better place to accomplish this than the beach!

Soothing background waves crashing, surfers and swimmers to watch, seaweed to dodge (we had a bunch of really bad storms and the beach was COVERED with the stuff). On top of that the sand is not only more of a workout to walk on, but it gives you a nice little foot scrub at the same time! And lastly, it comes with souvenirs! Pretty sure the neighbors would have had something to say if I picked their flowers on my neighborhood walks, but the beach doesn’t mind at all if I come home with some pretty seashells!

I decided to make a beach-y summer yarn wreath for my front door.

It makes me happy when I see it.

It was super simple to make, finished in less than an afternoon!

All you need is:

Yarn (pick a pretty color you like! I chose a yarn that had multiple colors in it – it reminded me of the ocean and sand.)

A foam wreath (I picked a round one, instead of the ones with flat edges; it was easier to give the wreath a rounded edge with less yarn that way. Mine is about 8 inches across.)

Flotsam and Jetsam from your craft supplies or things you have around (I used some shells and some scrapbooking flowers I had, and some left over ribbon from wedding announcements haha.)

Hot glue gun (I love these suckers.)

First thing to start is to tie a regular double knot with your yarn so that it loops around the wreath (that way as you wrap it won’t come undone and slide off the wreath). Once you have the yarn tied down to a spot on the wreath, you start to wrap it around.

And wrap.

And wrap.

And wrap some more.

I did that part sitting down.

At first the yarn will kind of criss-cross as you are wrapping. This is ok for the first layer or so, but try to start to straighten it out after that and make it go around straight, it will give a more even look once you are done. You don’t have to use the whole ball of yarn (depending on how big of a wreath you picked) but make sure you use enough to cover all of the foam parts that show through. I used probably a little over half of my yarn.

To finish with the yarn, give yourself a little bit of length (enough to wrap around the foam at least once, and a little extra, for me it was about 4 or 5 inches), then tie it around the same way that you tied it on. I tied mine so the knot would end up on the back, but it didn’t really make a difference as it disappeared into the rest of the yarn as soon as I had let go of it.

Now its time to fire up the glue gun.

While that is heating up, assemble your flotsam and jetsam and decide how you would like it to look on your wreath.

Glue it down! Yea! (Make sure you catch all those glue gun spider webs as soon as you can, cause they tend to stick to the yarn.)

Tie a ribbon around the top and hang it on your front door (or wall, or closet, or really… anywhere).

Admire it and be happy.

- Mrs. A