An Attempt at Craftiness

Every year I get a ton of Christmas cards in the mail and never have a good spot to put them. They usually end up on the entertainment center or the piano, but this year I wanted to do something different. I searched and searched for a greeting card holder. Well okay, I searched Target and found two that I didn't like. I thought, I'm sure the Internet has some great ideas. So I really did search and search the Internet for a good idea. I found this really cute Christmas wreath made out of clothespins. You just string them together on a wire with some beads between them and Voila! You have a greeting card holder wreath. Sounds pretty simple until you realize that each of the 42 clothespins had to be painted inside and out. That took me a couple days to complete. My cute little brain didn't even think to take them apart to paint. That was the great and wonderful Stevey's idea. So after painting all that I could on the outside, we finally decided to take them apart and paint the middles. Don't ask me how I was going to do that part with them still put together.

The instructions said to use a hanger wire and pony beads. I chose these cute red and green beads over the pony beads, but a hanger wire just would not fit through them. I bought some wire that was just perfect. I put it all together and Voila! It was as limp as a noodle. It looked really nice sitting on the table, but once you picked it up it just sagged. The wire was not strong enough.

So after another attempt at shoving the hanger wire through the beads, I decided I would just hot glue the hanger wire to the back of the wreath. This time the Voila, worked! It stayed together, it didn't sag, and you can hardly tell the wire is on the back!

The only thing that the hanger wire changed is now I can't move the clothespins forwards and backwards, but hey who cares? I think it looks awesome!

Click here for the Woman's Day article where I found the idea.