Snowflake Wreath Tutorial

This tutorial has been in my mind for a while.  One of the first things I "pinned" when I joined Pinterest was a snowflake wreath that was originally posted here on Better Homes and Gardens.  It's beautiful and I wanted to recreate it - I had a ton of snowflake ornaments on hand and they'd make a neat gift.

Have you been to a craft store and looked at the price of foam wreaths?  I couldn't find the size I wanted, the thickness I desired and priced under $5 for a single wreath.  I looked for wooden "wreaths" as well - those apparently only exist in my head.

I'm sure I looked slightly deranged while wandering my local Hobby Lobby trying to find what I wanted.  I then thought of cake rounds - the cardboard bases that bakeries place cakes on.  They're sturdy, thin, and I could get a set of 6 for less than 3 dollars.

Tutorial Time!

 What you'll need: an 8" cake round, ruler, writing instrument (I used a pen), cutting mat, cutting tool, 12 flat snowflake ornaments (I purchased mine at Target), strong adhesive (I used Goop)

 Take your cake round, ruler, and pen and measure 1" in from both sides.  Go all around and make as many marks as you need.

 Use your pen to freehand a circle based on your marks.  This will be your cutting line.

 Cut along your line with your cutting tool.  The cake round is corrugated cardboard, so I generally go around twice: once to make a cutting channel, the second time to go all the way through.  This way I don't wind up with a skipping blade and a bleeding crafter.

 This is your finished ring.  You can use it as it is or you can cover it with clear tape (which will give it some weather protection.)

 Lay out your ornaments on the wreath so you know how they'll fit and you like how they look.  **I then take them off so they're in the same layout, only backwards (if you look in the top left of the next picture, you'll see what I mean.)

 Glue down your bottom layer of ornaments. I will put down a generous drop of glue and then press the ornaments down into them.  Goop doesn't set right away, so you have time to play with the layout. (Unlike hot glue - which was the adhesive in the original tutorial when I read it.)

 With the upper layer of ornaments, I put the glue on the ornament itself and then carefully place it so it overlaps 2 ornaments in the bottom layer.

All glued down!  

After the wreath is all glued, I put the cutting mat on top of it and then placed a heavy mini crate on it (it has my Nestabilities and Cuttlebug dies in it.)  This makes sure that none of the ornaments have the ability to loosen themselves from the others as the glue dries.  Let this sit for at least 4 hours so the glue can start to dry.  After 24 hours, the glue should be dry and you can put a ribbon on it as a hanger.

And that's all there is to it!  I hope this inspires you to create!