Chicago Cubs Ornament Wreath & New Holiday Ornament Wreath

The ornament wreath I made a few years ago (last one pictured above) is still my favorite craft of everything I’ve made.  I hang it every year and usually leave it up way after all my other holiday decorations have been taken down because I worked so hard on it and it just turned out so awesome.  I’ve thought about doing more (because it was also fun to do), but doing another large one would be super expensive (the amount of ornaments it required was ridiculous, I probably spend $80-$100 on the thing) and I thought doing a small one would also be pricey, and I also thought it would be difficult to find the right size ornaments for such a thing.  

Well, proving myself wrong, (sort of, I still spend like $45 per wreath on these), I recently DID make a smaller wreath, and then another one!  It all started when I was at Walmart with my boyfriend the other day and we saw some Chicago Cubs ornaments we liked.  They were nothing special, but they were okay.  A couple days later, I went to buy them for him as a surprise, but of course they were sold out.  So I thought to myself, I can go to 10 WalMarts trying to find them (hell), or, I can MAKE them.  And I can make them better!

So I went to Hobby Lobby, and that’s when the idea exploded.  I started putting red and blue ornaments in my cart, and then I saw the wreath forms, and then the wheels started turning… and well, I decided to go for it.  A Cubs wreath.  Even better than Cubs ornaments!

First I had to cut the wreath form to a size where the ornaments could sit around it and touch each other.  This was trial and error.  I trimmed, I checked, I trimmed some more, I checked, until 12 ornaments sat comfortably around the thing, touching each other, but not too tight.  

Next, I wrapped the form with tulle.  I would recommend ribbon, it’s way easier, but all I had at the time was tulle so I went with it.

I began gluing the 12 outer large ornaments on first.  When I only had a couple left, I checked to make sure they were all going to fit correctly.  I had a little extra space so I used lots of glue between those so everything would be snug.

Then, I added some largish baseball ornaments.  I was still keeping it uniform at this point.  Have I mentioned before that I am terrible at this type of craft because I am a touch OCD and an incredible perfectionist?  I want everything to be balanced.  I spent a long time staring at the thing figuring out how to arrange things.

Uniformity went out the window after a while, and it should, because you want some of it to be random.  Thing is, you still want to keep it balanced.  So, me being me, I was unhappy with the placement of one ornament, and I tried to remove it.  This was the result:

I was so mad at myself!  I had to open another pack of ornaments I was going to return to replace this one.  Tip:  If you want to remove something already glued in place, use a hairdryer to loosen the glue.  I did that on the other side and it worked.  Do not just try to yank it off like I did.  Sigh.  In the end it was okay because I liked the ornaments I replaced it with better, but still.

You want to work large to small ornaments with this.  It’s nice to get some really small little ones to fill in gaps when you’re done.  I added a bow to hang it, like my large one has, but then I got rid of it because it looked too girly to me, and this was for my boyfriend.  He is hanging it with a large 3M Command hook instead and it works well.

The stupidest thing I did (stupider than breaking an ornament, even), was not painting the logos on before making the wreath.  I wanted to get it together before deciding where they went, so I didn’t do it first on purpose, but it made it much harder to paint them with the wreath together.

I spent a long time on the painting.  I didn’t want to screw up and ruin the whole thing.  I printed the logo, cut it out, and used that as a stencil, then I used acrylic paint and a small brush to very very very carefully paint the logos.  I think they turned out pretty nicely, actually, for being hang painted.  I was proud of myself.

Here’s a size comparison to the larger wreath I made years ago:

The Cubs wreath turned out better than I had expected.  And he was surprised!  He posted it on Facebook and everyone loved it and sad they wanted one (the Cubs fans, that is).  He tells me after Christmas he’s hanging it in is office at work.

Since I was on a roll, and now knew I could do a smaller wreath, I decided to also make one for my mom for a gift.  I hope she likes it!  I added a bow but she may opt to not use it, which would be fine.  I also added ornaments on the outside of this one for some extra shine and shape and it really added to the overall piece.

Overall, though expensive, these are so fun!  I totally recommend doing one.  If you can get ornaments after Christmas on clearance, even better!  I may try to do that this year and make even more next year!