There are a lot of really cute ornament wreaths out there on the Internet and Pinterest, but I LOVE MINE SO MUCH. Okay, I am bias, because it's my favorite colors (purple and turquoise), and I spent hours on it, and it goes great in my apartment. So great, in fact, that I might cry when Christmas season is over and I have to take it down. I did this back in October (before my button ornaments, which btw, have been a rave hit among my relatives and friends, and I have requests now for them and people are even paying me for them, crazy). I still love looking at it every day.
Here's some of the stuff I bought. As another blog I looked at said, you need A LOT of ornaments. I already had a couple bulk packs I was going to use, but even so, I spent like $25 on ornaments. If I didn't already have any, I could've easily spent $40+ buying them. I think it's worth it, but just beware. Not all the ornaments I bought are in this picture, not even close, actually:
Also, you will want to get unbreakable ornaments. Not all mine were and I broke a few. Plus, I would hate it if one broke on the finished wreath and ruined the whole thing. Also, I bought a 12" wreath straw form, and the whole finished thing is over 16" across. It's a good size to handle your typical Christmas ornament ball. A smaller form might be overwhelmed with standard size bulbs, and standard bulbs are easier to fine in bulk (for cheaper).
To start out, you wrap the wreath form in ribbon. I kept going with the same ribbon to make a bow to hang it from. Then, I put ornaments around the outside of the wreath:
After this, I did spend quite a while (okay, hours), trying to plan out how I was going to position everything (and running out to buy more ornaments.) I am a little too OCD for crafts sometimes. (Yes, that is a beer in the background.) I did have to let go eventually and just start gluing though. You can't plan it all.
After I just sort of had a loose outline for where I wanted the big ornaments, and then started gluing with just a regular ol' glue gun.
When I was all done with the ornaments, it looked like this. I had these tiny little black foam balls with sequins from Hobby Lobby that I added last, to fill in the gaps. Here, I had just set a couple in place.
And then, I just added more ribbon (sort of weaved it through; it would've been easier to do it before I put the ornaments on of course). I hung it on my wall with a 3M temporary hook. The thing weights under 3 lbs. I love the ribbon I found, btw. Sheer purple/turquoise mesh, matches perfect!
Even though you can spend a lot on ornaments (a good idea would be to buy them half off after Christmas), I recommend making one of these! It looks great and it was fun.