fresh cranberry wreath (aka dumbest idea ever!)

It really was the dumbest. project. ever.

My fingers still hurt. It took hours.

But here it is, in all of it's glory. Behold:

The Fresh Cranberry Wreath.

My insanity started when I saw the Target version last weekend in the Smith & Hawken section. It was bout $40. It was gorgeous, but I said "Oh, I can so make that... and I can do it cheaper!" and my hubby said "I like cheaper, you run with that!" So I did.

I did do it cheaper, my version cost about $15. But I don't know that it was really worth it.

Because he loves me, and he's really the best hubby ever, he sat at the kitchen counter with me for an hour and a half last night breaking the toothpicks and poking the cranberries for me. We made ourselves a nice little assembly line. I'm pretty sure he saved me hours! It was fun to sit and talk while we worked, but I kept stopping to complain. The toothpicks kept popping through and poking my thumb and index fingers. They throbbed when we were finished.

I started this project in the afternoon, stopped for dinner, continued after my little boys where in bed and didn't finish until about 12:45 AM. Stupid insanity. Next time I'll shell out the $39 and go to bed early. :) I'm serious, this probably took a year off my life.




It does look like I wanted it to, though, and it is really pretty. I like it better today than I did last night.

If you've got time to waste and you like stupid craft projects, here's the run down on what I did...

Get yourself lots and lots of cranberries. I used 5-6 bags. I found them for $1.50 at Wal Mart. They were about $3 at my Smiths, so look around for a good price. I spread them out on a towel to help them dry a little, I had a little help. :)
All you need is a bunch of toothpicks, break them in half and poke the cranberry through the broken end, put a dob of hot glue on the end and stick it into a foam wreath. I spray painted mine black (red would be better, but I didn't have red) just so the green foam wouldn't jump out and draw your eye in. You can't really see it in most places, the black just looks like shadow.

So it's break, poke, glue, stick in foam, REPEAT. :)


And about a half hour in you'll wonder why you didn't just spend $40 and buy one at Target.

I'm going to try and save it so it's not just a one year deal, we were thinking last night that if we let it dry out just a little bit and spray it with a nice coat of poly that it should help the cranberries keep their shape instead of shriveling up. I'll let you know if that works.

Happy wreath making buying!