Fall Friday Week #1 - Wreath - Stampin Scrapper

I am starting a new series today called Fall Friday. Every Friday for the next 9 weeks plus on October 31st I am going to have a project, card, scrapbook page, etc. just for fall. My favorite season of the whole year! I love the smells, bon fires, sweatshirts, cool nights, apple cider, pumpkins, pies, apple crisp, festivals, Halloween just to name a few. I am getting excited just thinking about it.

Are you ready for my first project of the series?! Here it is!!!!!

I have never made this type of wreath before and I had so much fun making it. I love the process of trying to figure out what paper to use, how to arrange it, what and if I should add any additional decorations and then putting it all together. You won't believe what paper I used! It is the Moroccan Designer Series Paper! For fall? I know! I was going through my paper and wanted something a little different and saw the colors in this pack and thought let's try it. Man, am I glad I did. I love how it turned out.

You will notice there is a little something from the new Holiday Catalog on this wreath. Do you see the two scarecrows? They are from the new stamp set Cookie Cutter Halloween and it has a matching punch!! Yay!

This wreath is not difficult to make, maybe a little time consuming, it took me about 45 minutes to make it. The hardest part for me was where am I going to put the letters for FALL and the scarecrows. I couldn't really decide and it was hard to tell just looking at it laying on my desk. I thought I liked how I had it then I took a picture. Nope, not at all. So I would change things around, take a picture, look at it, change things around again, take a picture, you get the idea. I finally came up with the design you see here. Yeah, I really need to get over being a perfectionist. I won't tell you how many times I moved the scarecrows around. I still may change them knowing me. LOL

The strips are made out of 12 inch paper cut into 1 1/2" strips. I used 8 different papers for a total of 28 strips. You will have to play with it to see how many you need as it will depend on the size of wreath you use. I used a 12" wreath made from chipboard from Michael's. I punched each end with the Banner Triple Punch so they were all even and it was easy. You have to love a punch.

I first laid out my paper around the wreath to see where I wanted the different papers to go. Once I had a general idea, I glued the ends together using the Multi Purpose Glue and I only put glue on the top 2" of the strip. I wanted to be able to move them around until I got all of them on so I did not adhere them to the wreath at this time. Once I was happy with it, I glued the strips to the chipboard using Fast Fuse. I did not press really hard on glued area just in case I had to move them a little. I did not adhere the paper to the back of the wreath only the front. I left just a little gap at the top so I could put my twine there to hang it up.

The FALL letters are made by cutting them out with the Large Letter Framelits using Always Artichoke paper. For the circles they were made with the Layering Circle Framelits in Crushed Curry and Very Vanilla. I stamped the Very Vanilla circles with a stamp from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set and used Cherry Cobbler ink. I added the color to the Very Vanilla as it was too stark against the green with nothing on it. This helped to soften it a little.

I stamped the scarecrows with Early Espresso ink and then used our markers to color him. The markers I used were Always Artichoke, Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry, Dapper Denim and Pumpkin Pie. I think he is so cute! Here is a close up of the letters and scarecrow.