Using the red thread’s tutorial on paper wreaths and Arona Khan’s tutorial on decorative ribbon bows, I was able to successfully create my very own paper wreath!  This is a gift to my mother-in-law, Karen, so if you’re reading this – SURPRISE!  =)

Paper Snowflake Wreath

The cardboard base is 8″ in diameter with a 4″ circle in the center.  The leaves are made from double sided wrapping paper with the blue and snowflakes on the inside, and the silver with snowmen on the outside.  The leaves curl very nicely when they are the inside of the wrapping paper, so they are naturally curled.  For the snowmen, I used a rubber band to curl them around some rolled paper overnight so they would flatten out a bit.  They started out severely curled in the wrong direction.

I used a total of 31 blue and 6 accent snowmen leaves in this wreath.  They were cut out using my Cricut Expression and the Accent Essentials cartridge (shift/shadow/Accent41S, 3.0″).  I just ripped off the leaf stems as I was going along.  I cut the wrapping paper into approximately 12×12 pieces and used the Cricut tacky mat to cut them out, 9 per sheet.  For the snowmen, I used the Center Cut feature and a little experimentation to get them cut out centered.

This project was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  It took me longer to create the cardboard base and cut out all the leaves than it did to staple it all together.  I’d say all together it took me 2-2 1/2 hours, which isn’t too bad for my first attempt.

See more pictures of my paper wreath on Flickr.