My Retro Kitsch Pompom Wreath Explosion

For years I have wanted the Xmas Wreath Of My Dreams. Something sumptious and ridiculously Xmassy and gorgeous to hang out on the front door.

But I didn't really know what that was.

Our current Xmas wreath is one of those old fake pine needle ones which looks a bit boring.

Then I found this on the Pinterest.

Isn't is ridiculously gorgeous?  The pin leads to a random website with a list of Xmas Wreath ideas, which in turn leads back to the Pinterest. So Someone Else made this. I don't know who but they are a freaking genius and if you ever pop in here and see YOUR adorable retro kitsch wreath here on my blog: I LOVE YOU FOR THIS!

Because it inspired me to make my own.

BAM! (That's a more 'in your face' version of 'tah-dah').

I sort of started making the same wreath as the first one above and then got over enthusiastic. Then Sonofagun No.2 decided to help me with the trees and he got over enthusiastic and I loved it so glued all of them in.

That's like one of those movies that reveals the ending first. So this is how I got there.

I started Christmassing early.

"WHY????? Christmas decorating isn't supposed to start until December!!!" I hear you all scream at me.

Believe me, I've been hearing it for the past 2 weeks. But I don't care and this is why:

As the Mother of the House we do most of the decorating, shopping, wrapping, prepping, Xmas cooking and trying to make sure everyone has a nice lovely Christmassy time in December.

BUT this is while we also do all our normal stuff like working, cleaning, and caring for our Famsquads.

Then at the end of Christmassing, we have to pack it all away and cleaning all the bits of tinsel stuck on the back of sticky tape on walls, vacuum all that bloody glitter out of the carpet, return all the items people need exchanged because they're too big/ small/ uncool, and wash piles and piles of those baking items and 'the good crockery' that you only ever get out at Xmas.

And you realise that YOU missed Xmas. You missed that yummy, cosy Christmassy feeling, but have put on an extra 5 kilos anyway from stress eating to many mince pies.

Now I LOVE Christmas. I look forward to it all year. So I decided if I want to have time to also enjoy the cosy, yummy Xmas feeling, I'll just make the house all Christmassy a few weeks earlier. And it's working.

I'm already up to my 10th Xmas movie. Most of them have been those horrendous Hallmark movies. So.Good!

And the tree is up. 

I had a rather sad Xmas wreath that I wasn't in love with. And I couldn't find any in the shops I liked so after finding the pompom wreath on the Pinterest, I decided to make my own.

I had a foam wreath sitting in the craft cupboard for years. I first crocheted a cover for it to make sure the foam was hidden.

And then set about making a million pompoms.

The items I already had in my craft stash were:

1 x foam wreath purchased a few years ago from Spotlight

pompom makers and the yarn which were remnants from my Stylecraft Special DK stash

small and medium felt balls in rainbow colours

small retro style xmas baubles

1 flocked deer

a variety of beads & charms

1 x felt flower kit from an old issue of Molly Makes magazine (from 2017. Don't judge me, you hoard craft stuff just like me!)

a pack of toadstools

I had to buy the bottlebrush trees, a pack of lime green tiny felt balls, a sprig of frosted pinecones from Kmart, extra dark green yarn is Marvel 8ply and extra glue sticks for the glue gun both from Spotlight Australia.

I am often followed around the house by my two furry shadows. So the reality of trying to take the photo above is actually the photo below.

I lost count of exactly how many pompoms I made for the project, but here they all are. I had about 4 green pompoms leftover at the end.

I watched the Xmas movies and hot glue gunned contentedly.

I then played around with ornament placement.

Sonofagun No.2 joined me and asked if he could help. He put all the bottlebrush trees in surprising spots around the wreath which looked really good so I glued them into those positions.

The felt flowers were from one of those freebie kits with Molly Makes magazine. From Issue 80 which annoyingly, I no longer have as the instructions would have been in that issue. So I glued the pre-cut pieces together anyway and hoped for the best. 

At first I started tie-ing the pompoms to the wreath as I didn't think glueing them would be adequate. But after laboriously attaching several pompoms, I picked up the glue gun and started glueing. I would part the yarn where the string to pull the pompom together was knotted and plop a big swirly circle of glue in there, then press it onto the wreath and hold for a few seconds. That was much faster and also really strong. Those suckers would have to be cut off to be removed so the whole thing is very sturdy.

And now it's even better than I hoped. So good I don't really want to hang it out on the front door in case it got damaged or stolen.

 So it now hangs off the back of a door in the main lounge. I don't have a nice chimney to display it over. Annnnd because I didn't hang it outside, I had to drag out that old boring fake pine wreath to hang on the front door...

Louise

🎄 Red Haired Amazona 🎄