Share Advent: Wreath Wednesday

I've never had a front door wreath before. I quite like them, there's something very welcoming and cheery about them. Today's Share Advent prompt - Wreath Wednesday - seemed like a good time to aquire one.

I spent Sunday night browsing the web, trying to find one I liked that I could pick up on the way home from work. I'm a bit torn about Christmas decorations. I can't decide whether I like traditional (by which I mean berries, colour coordinated baubles, tartan bows and holly) or something a bit more, well, modern.

Clockwise from top left: Felt door wreath £15 Mini tree wreath £6 Pom Pom garland £8 Pom Pom bauble £2.50

I did find myself drawn to these lovelies, sadly all either too small or out of my budget – and in a moment of madness and rare optimism, a plan was formed. I was going to… duh duh duhhh… make a wreath myself.

If I was a remotely crafty (in the glue and glitter sense) person, this wouldn't have been quite the traumatic experience that it turned out to be. Monday evening was spent trying to work out how on earth to make pom poms. This resulted in a lot of tangled wool, my boyfriend Jonny ringing his mum (a Home Economics teacher) to ask her, and a very unhelpful conversation about wouldn't it just be easier to buy a wreath from John Lewis?

But... I googled, I found instructions that told me to wrap wool around a donut shaped bit of card, and I realised it was going to take me flipping ages to make 10 pom poms. Jonny got involved. The cat got involved. I got cross and impatient and threw my half made pom pom across the room. The cat got cross and impatient and bit me when I tried to reclaim it off him. It was all very stressful. Jonny made two pom poms. I made two cups of tea.

On Tuesday I had a minor panic about having to make 8 more pom poms without Jonny's assistance (he was out) in order to get this bloody wreath done for Wreath Wednesday. So I googled again, and found some quicker ways to make a pom pom. I became a pom pom demon. Hurrah! Time to attach them to my hoop... and they didn't fit. It looked a bit like one of those "send in your attempt at a Blue Peter project" photographs.

At which point I got cross and impatient and declared it a disaster, until it was pointed out that I could simply make a few more in a different colour to pad it out. So I angrily did that, all the time muttering about how I shouldn't ever do craft ever again and that it was a stupid idea in the first place.

And then it turned out alright, albeit slightly Italian.
Hooray! Wreath!

Well, at least the kitten looked impressed.