'Tis the Season

I know I haven't finished all of my Big/Little Reveal posts yet, but I just had to share my project from today! 

I was told over the weekend that I should make a Christmas-themed wreath for our door to keep our sorority house festive. Of course, my roommates selected me to do the hard work and I immediately logged into Pinterest and began browsing. I ended up stumbling upon a Christmas Tree shaped deco mesh wreath! 

              Image via: Pinterest.com

Now, even though I saw this wreath I really had no clue how to accomplish it. I originally planned to do a snowman wreath but somehow came across the tree instead. 

Usually, I'm a Hobby Lobby kind of girl but since it was Sunday I had to go to other craft stores and spent hours looking for materials. My trip proved even more difficult because I wasn't sure what kind of work wreath I needed to create this tree! 

I eventually gave up searching for the unknown and got creative. I found the wire easels typically used for floral arrangements in the floral section of my craft store and figured I could make it work. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a reference: 

Image via: http://www.mteden.com/catalog.aspx?subcat=50120&mastcat=Funeral

They had the cone shape I was looking for and I assumed with some patience and wire I could make my own wreath form. 

After messing with it for a brief amount of time, I was able to secure the middle wire of the easel by wrapping wire around it. I used pliers and wire cutters from my dad's toolbox for this disassembly. 

I then began to add wire rows to the easel to create my work wreath. This step was fairly simple and didn't take as much time as I thought. 

Next, I added pipe cleaners where I thought necessary. At this point, I was hopeful that my tree would come out the way I imagined. All I did next was form the wreath. I started by working from top to bottom. I did the left column, then the right column, and finally the middle column. 

Once I had finished these steps, I realized I had a few gaps between the columns. I added more pipe cleaners to the wreath form and continued forming my wreath. 

I didn't take pictures of my next steps, but the rest of the wreath was pretty easy! 

I created my bow "tree topper" by following the instructions on Kristen's Creations. (http://kristenscreationsonline.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-to-make-tree-topper.html?m=1) I've used this tutorial multiple times and it's the best explanation that I've ever seen. 

I affixed my tree topper using a pipe cleaner that I attached to the deco mesh. 

My next steps involved a lot of hot glue but I didn't really have a method in which I added the beads and ornaments. Usually when I make wreaths I just kind of wing it. I don't plan much when it comes to what is being placed on the wreath. 

I first added the beads, hoping it would help me space out my ornaments. The ornaments were sporadically placed. Primarily, I just didn't want to have too many empty spots on the wreath. I also didn't want to have too many things on it either. 

Overall, I'm really happy when the way this came out! Especially since I didn't have a cone/tree work wreath! 

Let the holiday festivities begin! 

Oh, sheet.

One of the biggest parts of Big/Little reveal is our sheets that we have to paint. 

If you remember my blog post from the spring (http://lifeofacollegecrafter.blogspot.com/2014/04/iglittle-reveal.html?m=1) 

you'll remember these sheets! The theme for big/little reveal is always movies. Each Big picks a movie and paints a sheet to coordinate along with it. Throughout the official Big/Little week, the Bigs send clues to their littles about what movie they have. On reveal day, the littles stand in front of their sheet based on the movie they got. On the count of three all of the Bigs drop their sheets and the Big/Little pairs are revealed! 

For my movie, I picked Wizard of Oz and picked a fairly easy design for the sheet.

This ended up being my completed sheet and it took forever. It was exhausting but worth it. I was relatively happy with how it turned out. Mainly, I was ready to get rid of the thing. Just kidding. Sorta.

Here's the process though. 

Materials:

Flat sheet 

Paintbrushes (foam and detail ones)

Paint

Sharpie 

Chalk 

Lots and lots of time

Tarp (optional)

Iron

I attempted to find a blue/green sheet so I wouldn't have to paint both the sky and the grass, but life isn't always fair so I had to get an all white sheet.

The first step is to iron the sheet so there aren't any wrinkles when you start painting. This step didn't take as long as I thought.

Clearly, I'm really bad at ironing and I gave up. Not recommended because it made the sheet harder to paint. Regardless, I put a tarp on the floor to protect it from the paint that would seep through from the sheet. I sketched out my design with a sharpie. 

Here's just a close up shot of my sketch Emerald City. 

I first began by painting the grass. I had two different color greens and hoped that they could easily be blended to create a "realistic" look. 

I just did random brush strokes. I liked how spontaneous it looked. 

The next step in painting my sheet was the poppies. I attempted to look up how to paint poppies but I didn't find anything worth while. So instead, I kind of just guessed. 

I used a single color of a pink/red to draw the outline. I filled in the poppy with that color and then took a lighter pink and added some highlight. 

I then went back in and added some darker reds to the center and outer petals of the poppies for more dimension. I don't really have a method for this part. Mainly I just add color where I think it looks best. 

In typical Life of a College Crafter fashion, I stopped taking progress pictures. Whoops. Even though I don't have pictures here's a breakdown of each part of the sheet. 

Poppies:

After I finished painting all the poppies I went back in and added small yellow flowers for some color. I then lightly dipped my brush in light green paint to add stems to each flower. I think this step was really important in adding dimension and life to the painting!

Grass: 

I'm not even gonna lie, I ran out of green paint halfway through and did not have the time to go get more soooo I improvised. I ran out of the green paint that is visible on the right side of the sheet. Therefore I used the deep green paint and mixed it with white to create the color on the left. It looks a little weird, but when looking at the sheet as a whole it's not too bad! I intentionally made the grass that was touching Emerald City the deep, forest green in order to separate the colors and show depth. (I try to use really artsy weirds to make you think I know what I'm talking about). 

Sky:

It's just painted all the same shade of blue. Nothing special here. 

Emerald City: 

I started by painting the city all green. From there, I added green and white paint to the city to create some streaks. I didn't want the city to be one color. I also found light and dark green glitter paint. I used this kind of paint over the dried city to add some sparkle! 

I finished it off by writing  "Littles, crescents, & pearls OH MY!" on the top of the sheet. I used chalk to sketch the letters out on the sheet prior to painting the letters. 

(That's my twin's sheet...too cute!) 

Overall, I really liked my sheet! Definitely a labor of love..

That's it for this post but check out the rest of my Big/Little Reveal posts for more crafts!

Big/Little Reveal

It's that time again....it's Big/Little season! This semester I was lucky enough to take a little and I adore her! She was my first choice throughout this whole experience and she definitely exemplifies everything our sorority stands for! 

Anyways, moving on to the more important aspects of big/little reveal....the crafts! So much went into this event and I'm going to post multiple blog posts for easy reading. 

Here's a bunch of pictures for a peek of what's to come though!