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Spring is here. It doesn’t look like it yet, but I can feel it. One sure sign of spring in my home is this flower wreath hanging on the front door. Can anything be more cheerful than blooming flowers – maybe the fact that it cost me nothing to make it!

Here is what you need: cardboard, assortment of artificial flowers and leaves (I used existing old flowers), hot glue gun with extra glue sticks, scissors, wire cutters

What to do: Draw a circle on the cardboard of the size of wreath you want. I traced around a big lid of a laundry bin. Then I roughly drew a smaller circle inside the large one and cut the outside and inside to make a ring.

This whole idea for a flower wreath was really to use up what I had. I had (and still have lots) of these green leaves from a large event a few years ago (my wedding) that I did topiaries for. I knew I had to use these up or toss them (as part of my decluttering mission). The flowers on the other hand, were from my mom’s home. I asked nicely if she could give those up for a special project – and she was happy to take them out of their tired looking vignettes in search of a new life. And a new life they got.

Here is what happened next. A whole herd of horses appeared from nowhere and have rummaged through the luscious greenery, some got trapped and were squealing for help. A young lady came to save the day and came to their rescue….

while the rescue mission happened (and I was entertained) I hot glued a base of the leaves in place, making sure to cover as much of the cardboard ring.

Once the leaf base was in place, I prepared the flowers by clipping them very close to the flower buds. I first arranged them how I wanted it to look, then went in and hot glued each one individually into it’s spot. (sorry, no photos of this process – but very straight forward). Lastly, I punched a hole on the top with a nail and tied a little scrap ribbon for hanging (a piece of wire would also do). And you’re done!

Your finished wreath will be shouting SPRING right before your eyes. It is very bright and happy – and that’s just perfect on this still very gloomy cold day in April;)

I was happy to use up some old leaves and flowers (thanks mom) and using cardboard for the base was very frugal indeed.

This lovely flower wreath is going right back to my mom’s (but on the weekend) - I am sure she will love it and probably won’t believe it’s her old, dusty, tacky but still pretty flowers. For now it’s still dressing up our house ;)

Guess what, I just came across Pier 1′s website that has a wreath similar to this for $45. Ridiculous, right? Mine, free. And if you look around your home or ask for donations from your mom or grandma you may also score this baby for free. You can check out a thrift store as well. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with buying some cute flower buds in your colour choice – and maybe with some peonies thrown in (that would be very pretty ;) after all shopping does improve the economy ;) but do use the cardboard as your base – then you’re kind of meeting half way!