Merry Christmas!
I was thinking of something special I could do to add to the decorating I've done for Christmas. A wreath to hang on the door, even if only my bedroom door since things tend to go walking if left in the apartment halls. (So much for Decking!) But like many I'm on a shoe string budget. So I recalled something that I used to see as a child. People would make Christmas Wreaths from a coat hanger and plastic strips from dry cleaner bags. Coat hangers are still abundant, but at least in my family we have much less dry-cleaning done. What to replace the once common plastic dry cleaner bags... something everyone has, at least that I have, that is abundant and something inexpensive enough that I won't miss otherwise...
Plastic Grocery Bags
Home Made Christmas Wreath!
Tools:
Scissors
Materials:
1 coat hanger (wire, wood would be wrong, wouldn'tit)
12 plastic grocery bags (one for each day of christmas) (actual millage may vary)
2 hours (or 3...)
Optional:
some inexpensive christmas ornaments
Directions:
First taketh one wire coat hanger and form a circle with it. You should be left with a wire circle around 10" in diameter with a hook. (33" in circumference) I used a white plastic coated hanger.
Second take your plastic bags and convert them into strips about 1/2" wide and 5 inches long. (shorter might work better and perhaps 3/4" wide or even 1" wide)
Third take these strips and tie them, one at a time, by the middle to the wire circle. and push them tight to each other. Adjust them so they point in randomish directions.
Voila! You should have a soft fuzzy wreath the colour of the bags you used at a cost of... I think you can still get hangers for under a dime at dry-cleaners.
Optionally you can take a Christmas Ornament and hang it from the hook so that it hangs in the center,
or perhaps a bow on the bottom of the wreath, or...
tie wrapped candies to the wreath, or...
mix in strips of other materials such as old gift wrap, coloured plastic, or...
strips of foil, mylar, fabric, or yarn (though I'm not sure how they will turn out.
Hints:
If you will be using a mixture of bags from different stores, you might want to either cut up all the bags at once and mix the strips together to make the mixture of colours relatively uniform, or sort the colours to make some sort of pattern.
Rather than cut each strip individually, I straighten the bag then fold it lengthwise until it is a strip about 1" in width with the handles at one end and the bottom of the bag at the other. Then I cut this strip into 1/2 inch chunks which unfolded are large loops. After unfolding the loops I then take the batch of them and fold them in half, and again and again until the loops are folded into a 5-6" strip. Then I cut this in half and produce a batch of 5" x 1/2" strips with a minimum of cutting and fuss.
I'd hesitate to add any lights to the wreath due to potential fire hazard.
Anyhow, something old, something new, something kean, something green!
Merry Christmas All!
Darrell