A Welcoming Thought (Or a Wreath Alternative)

 This is the time of year that we are supposed to be taking stock of our blessings, thinking about warmth, family and harvest. At least that's how I feel. The holidays are fast approaching and with family stopping by more often, I wanted to start decorating for the season.

There are tons of wreath tutorials and some really beautiful designs out there for this time of year. Don't believe, go look at pinterest. Personally, I'm not a big fan of wreaths and with my screen, they are hard to see. Plus, I don't have that much room to store them. So I decided on an alternative.

I started with this free template from BHG.com for a pillow. I loved the look of it but wanted to personalize it a little. Rather than enlarging as directed, I printed it out on a single piece of paper and cut the pieces out of craft felt. There was the main orange background, a yellow-orange body and the brown stem.

With a pencil, I free handed some lettering and the swirly-curlies and then hand stitched the beads down. For a little extra touch I outlined the stem in the same gold beads as the swirly-curlies and used a pale green ribbon to hang it. There is no stuffing or stiffener to this at all, just basically two layers of felt.

It looked a little plain on my 70's-tastic front door, so I added the fall leaf wreath from yesterday's post to it. My DH gave it his stamp of approval, so it will be up for a bit, until I get my Halloween door project finished...