Beach Wreath

Summer is a time for beach-themed projects and challenges I think. Last year, I had made a summer-themed origami composition. This year, a Facebook group had a challenge for May, which comes to a close today. I tend to wait till the last minute before completing projects! The theme was simple - Beach. Anything to do with the beach is good. The challenge was that we are not to use our usual craft medium. In my case, paper. That proved very complex for me!

Anything and everything crafty that I can think of, is of paper. I am pretty good with my sewing machine but I really couldn't find something that I could do easily. I finally chanced upon this beach-themed wreath that seemed do-able. So I went about collecting shells, pearls and more shells! And managed to complete my wreath today.. finally!!

I started off with a wreath base. After completing 2 wreaths, the base is turning out to be pretty quick to make. And very eco-friendly, to boot! And this time, instead of adding my shells directly to the base, I wound it in cream-coloured satin ribbon first. This gave me a three-fold advantage - the back of the wreath (see next pic) had a very smooth and neat finish, the gaps between the shells and pearls wasn't obviously seen and the sheen in the ribbon added a nice touch to the wreath. To wind the ribbon and to add the shells, I used my latest craft purchase - a glue gun :) Ah, the joy of getting things to stick well and quickly, without messing up your fingers! After the ribbon was done, I started adding the bigger shells, followed by the smaller ones and finally the pearls.

One thing I hadn't anticipated was the weight  of the wreath. So now I need to get some good thick ribbon to ensure that the whole thing doesn't fall down when I hang it! And that is my beach-themed project for this summer :)