{Mesh Snowman Wreath}

Hey, y'all!  Today, I want to share the birthday present I made for my mom.  She is turning...well, she has a milestone birthday today, and I made her a little something special.  She LOVES snowmen!  (It borders on obsession!)  She wanted a Christmas wreath to go in her living room.  She likes those mesh wreaths, so I decided to attempt to combine her love of snowmen with a mesh wreath, and I have to say I LOVE the end product!

I started with a wreath form and a metal baker's rack from the dollar store.  I also used wire and white, iridescent mesh "ribbon."  (We'll talk about the other supplies later.)

I began by hot glueing and wiring the metal rack to the middle of the wreath form.  (Since I was going to fill in the middle of the wreath with the mesh, I had to have something to attach the ribbon to.)

I then simply covered the wreath with the mesh ribbon.  (There are plenty of tutorials for covering a wreath with the mesh, so I'm not going to bother trying to explain that.  I will suggest that you used pipe cleaners the color of your mesh, though.)  I used the whole spool of ribbon in the supply picture, and I still had some gaps.  I went to Walmart (the closest craft store to me is forty-five minutes away), and bought some tulle ribbon stuff.  I also bought pipe cleaners because, up to this point, I had been using floral wire.

When I finished covering the wreath with the ribbon and tulle stuff (I neglected to take a picture), I had to work on the coal eyes and mouth, the carrot nose, and the top hat.  For the eyes and mouth, I used styrofoam balls from the dollar store.  For the nose, I used a styrofoam cone from the craft store.

I'm not sure if you know this, but you can't paint plain styrofoam.  I googled how to paint styrofoam, though, and came across this article from ThriftyFun.  It said you can paint styrofoam if you cover it with a layer of Mod Podge first.  So I covered all the pieces with Mod Podge.  Then I painted them.  (I glittered the nose too, of course!)  And to top the piece off, I made a pretty fabulous hat.

To make the hat, I cut a semi-circle out of cardboard for the base and a rectangle for the cylinder.  I covered the pieces with spray glue and attached felt to them.  I glued the rectangle to the semi-circle.  Then I traced the top on a piece of cardboard, cut it out, glued felt to it, and glued it to the top.  I glued a cardboard rectangle to the inside of the cylinder to reinforce it.  I added a felt band and a dollar store ornament to complete the hat.  (I did the same thing on a smaller scale for my embroidery hoop snowman.  There are more photos for that hat, so if you don't understand what I just typed, check it out.)  Then I attached all the pieces to the wreath.

I stuck pipe cleaners through the backs of the styrofoam pieces.  (Stick a toothpick in the pieces and pull it out so your pipe cleaners will stick in easily.)  I stuck the pipe cleaners through the mesh where I wanted the eyes, nose, and mouth to go.  I wrapped the pipe cleaners around the metal rack.  I pretty much did the same thing for the hat.

I hot glued several pipe cleaners to the back of the hat and threaded those through the mesh and wrapped them around the metal rack as well.  Then I was finally finished!

I have to say that I REALLY love this guy!  I had this vision of what he would look like in my head, and he turned out better than I imagined.  I LOVE when that happens!

My favorite part about the whole thing is the hat.  My husband actually called it "awesome."

I gave the snowman to my mom after her surprise birthday party Saturday night, and he is now proudly hanging in her living room over her mantle.  I'm kind of a little sad that he didn't get to stay with me, but I'm glad that she loves him.  Merry Christmas!