A few years ago, I bought a giant tube of Christmas bulb ornaments from a clearance shelf after the holidays were over. I figured I'd end up putting them all over the tree the following year, so I stored the container under our stairs with the rest of our Christmas decor — and for three years, that's where it stayed.
Every year, I'd pull out all of our totes filled with decorations, along with that tube of bulbs. However, by the time I'd decorated the house and put all of my favourite ornaments on the tree, I didn't have the energy or the patience to do anything with those silver, taupe, and white clearance bulbs — so back into storage they'd go.
Over the last couple of months, I've done a few major purges of our house. I'm at the point where clutter drives me absolutely insane, so whenever I come across it, I can't help but go into "trash or donate" mode. And, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, my most recent purging session brought me face-to-face with that dusty container of Christmas bulbs.
In that moment, I knew I had to do something about it. The last thing I wanted was to continue to hold on to something that had become completely useless. So, I decided that rather than not getting my money's worth out of the bulbs and hauling them off to Value Village, I was going to dig into Pinterest to find a project that would put those things to good use.
Within seconds, I came across the perfect solution to my holiday clutter problem: an ornament wreath.
Materials
Wire wreath form
Christmas bulb ornaments
Pipe cleaners
Wooden Christmas decoration
Acrylic paint
Metallic marker
Hot glue gun + glue sticks
Command Hook
Twine
Tip: Wreath forms can be kind of expensive depending on the size you need and where you shop. However, I'm happy to report that Dollar Tree sells perfectly sized wire forms for a more than reasonable price.
Once I had all of my materials gathered and ready to go, I started threading pipe cleaners through a bunch of my ornaments. Next, I pulled some of the ornaments against the wreath form and tightly twisted the pipe cleaners, securing them in place.
At this stage, the bulbs were slipping and sliding around a bit, but the more I added, the less room they had to do so.
I continued to add bulbs around each section of the wreath form until I couldn't fit anything else on the wire.
With the wreath facing down, I used a pair of linesman pliers to trim back the excess of pipe cleaner ends that had built up.
As soon as the back was set, I flipped over my wreath so that it was right-side up and I used the hot glue gun to add even more bulbs to it, filling in gaps and perfecting the overall shape.
When I was satisfied with how it looked, I put my wreath aside and started working on its festive embellishment!
First, I covered the wooden decoration with a few coats of black acrylic paint. Once that had dried, I used a metallic rose gold marker to create a fun holiday message.
I used hot glue to secure the painted decoration to the front of my wreath, and then I added a strand of twine to the outer wire for hanging.
Rather than using a traditional, over-the-door hook to display the wreath on our front door, I grabbed a Command Hook and attached it in an upside down position to the back of the door. Doing so allowed me to hang the wreath with ease, giving it a seamless look.
Well, what do you think? I'm super happy with how this project turned out! And I'm even happier that I no longer have to drag that tube of ornaments in and out of storage each year.
If this project inspires you to get crafty, let me know by sharing your creations with me! Leave a comment or use #katiesaracreates on social media. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on future posts!
Happy crafting!
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