4th of July T-shirt Wreath - Tutorial

I was trying to think of some fun decor I could make for the 4th of July and as I looked at the empty hook on our front door, it shouted at me, "I need a wreath on me!" (My, what a demanding little hook that is!) :) But it was right. A nice red, white, and blue wreath would look great there. Now, how to make it? I must have seen something on someone's blog that inspired the idea, but for the life of me can't think what or where it was, but I came up with the idea of using some of my old shirts to make the wreath. AND, it just so happened that I had a red, white, and blue shirt in my old give-away pile. Granted, the red wasn't as deep or rich as I would have preferred, but beggars can't be choosers, right? And so, hi-ho, hi-ho it was off to crafting I go. And this is how it came out! I was pretty pleased with it. :)

And the best part??! This was 100% FREE! I had everything I used for this on hand! Nothing beats free decor, right?

So anyway, here's the tutorial...

Materials:

-1 shirt each of red, white, and blue

-1 wire hanger

-scissors or a rotary cutter (the rotary cutter makes this go SO much faster)

-pliers (I realized after the picture that they were much needed)

-hot glue gun and sticks (again, noticed the need after the picture)

-coordinating ribbons (optional-- I didn't even end up using them)

First, untwist the top of the hanger and straighten it out. Then bend it into a nice circle. I used the rounded hook part of the hanger to make a nice loop for hanging, but you can just make it completely circular if you like. (This is where you'll likely need your pliers- in helping you bend and twist the wire around each other to close off the circle. And once I had my circle and hook in place, I used hot glue at each end of the wire to keep it from being pokey and to help everything stay put.)

Next, cut your shirts into strips that are approximately 1-2" wide by about 6-8" long (you really don't want to go any longer than that). Now, it's not an exact science, so just start cutting away! Also, you will likely only need about 1/2 of the shirt (depending on how big it is) so don't cut everything all at once. Start with half the shirt and then you could potentially save the rest for another project (or at the very least, you've saved yourself from spending unnecessary time cutting extra strips).

(In mine, I used the parts of the shirt that had print on them. I like that it reminds me that the wreath came from some of my shirts. You may not like this and therefore may just want to use the unprinted parts of the shirt.)

Next you just start tying the strips onto the hangar. (Only do a single tie. Double tying to create a knot will leave you with too much bulkiness and the strip stays on just fine without a knot.) Keep tying, keep tying, and when you're tired of that... tie some more. :) There's no rhyme or reason. Just put some strips on there in varying orders until it's a nice, full wreath.

I actually ended up tying some on top of each other once I had gotten all the way around the wreath because it didn't seem full enough to me. So I just kept going until I liked it. :) (This is where you could also add some strips of the ribbon if you wanted. I just didn't want to.) And here it is!

But it still seemed like it was lacking something...

So out came some wooden stars that I had in a drawer, and some white sheer ribbon. I painted the stars red and blue...

hot glued them to the ribbon, and tied the ribbons onto the wreath...

and Ta-Da! It's done!

Happy 4th of July everybody!