I had an extra wire wreath frame, and I had the idea of doing a mesh wreath and maybe put some little wreath picks in there or some plastic eggs....that idea quickly vanished after a visit to Hobby Lobby & I saw their lack of a selection of "Easter" mesh, and by lack of...I mean there was carrot orange & burlap...and the burlap was only 6" wide. SO..I went to the floral department to see what they had. They had some mesh that would totally be workable, not ideal, but workable, however it was NOT on sale & I had already committed to purchasing cake supplies with my coupon (that was the true purpose of my visit). I decided I'd visit the trusty pinterest for some ideas & come back when the mesh was on sale.
Due to 2 bar shifts on top of school 2 nights last week I was totally & completely exhausted by Saturday. I searched pinterest for Easter wreath ideas & there were some super cute wreaths that popped up. However there was one that the actual wreath part was covered in flowers & the center was a rabbit's butt & feet sticking out like it was going down the rabbit hole. I was determined to do this as cheap as possible & I think that I succeeded! I only spent a total $2! That's right TWO dollars!
After I decided what I was going to do, and visited the amazing dollar isle @ Target, (actually called "One Spot", but it's the dollar isle in my circle), I found the cutest little bunny tail hair clip & these foam carrot nerf type things, (that if they would have been in our Easter baskets as kids, or even adults, they would have been used to peg each other with) for only $1 each! Such a steal!
(My kitchen table makes the BEST crafting spot BTW..my husband, not so fond of it, but I was able to do this entire project in just an hour or so after he had left for work, so he'll never know!
...although he'll probably guess if he ever reads this post -_- )
After taking a quick inventory of my craft supplies, here are the supplies I started off with:
I had this extra grape vine wreath that I had bought at Hobby Lobby for under $6. I had made a new fall wreath to replace my existing one, but decided my existing one was cuter than the new one, so I stripped the wreath down for this project. I had tulle for a plethora of other projects, mostly for baby wreaths & tutus. I bought some Easter eggs at Target for $0.88 cents for 12 (I think 12) in 2 different color schemes, but decided not to use them. I grabbed my jewelry making tool kit, just to cut the floral wire that was holding on some items from the wreath's previous identity, but I didn't use it afterwards. My trusty hot glue gun that I've had literally for like 10 years...nothing fancy, just a cheap-y low temp gun from Wal-Mart with some multi-temp hot glue sticks.
And of course some scissors & the bunny tail hair clip & carrot nerf-like rockets.
After I striped the wreath I discovered that it had a kind of egg shape and decided to exploit it. Plus it put the left over hot glue & previous glittered foam tenants' mess right where I was planning on putting the bow.
I decided to start with my bunny butt. Instead of having it occupy the entire middle of the wreath like the one I had seen, I just wanted to put it on the side, kind of at the bottom & flipped the wreath over so that the widest part of the wreath was where I wanted the bunny butt located. The larger area would make it easier to construct my bunny butt...prime real estate!
I cut a long part of teal colored tulle, which is the color I decided to make my bunny butt. I initially started out wanting to do brown, but I thought that it was too much brown with the grapevine. Plus teal is fun. I worked in 2" strips of hot glue, so that I had time to adjust before it set & it didn't set to quickly before I got around to the end of a larger strip of glue. I scrunched up the tulle and planted it firmly in the hot glue.
I went around in as much of a circle as I could. About 1/2 way through the bunny butt, I decided it would have been a better idea to cut out a piece of cardboard or something to assemble the bunny butt on, so that it would be more round, etc, then glue the cardboard to the wreath, but I was committed now, & was going to make it work!
I went around & around & in the middle until I had solid teal bunny butt.
After I had finished Peter Cotton Tail's tail, I decided to glue on the hair clip. I did a dry run of where I wanted it, and just placed a strip of glue on the alligator clip part and stuck it in it's pre-determined home. After I had stuck it, it still didn't look quite right. So I looked at my inspiration picture, and saw that she had made her tail closer to the bottom, so I added some more tulle towards the top. (Good thing about tulle, you can end and start again pretty much seamlessly.)
Now I was faced with the feet!!! There was no way I could fit them both on the wreath & have them look right, so I rescued a frozen breakfast box from the top of the recycle bin and cut it apart.
I drew a rough outline of the foot that I was going to use. Since the tulle was semi-transparent, I used the inked foot as a pattern to cut out the ones that I would actually use.
And they looked like this...
(Initially I was going to put little "foot pads" on the feet, but decided against it, so the smaller pieces are unnecessary.)
Beginning like I did the bunny butt I worked with approximately 2" strips of hot glue at a time and worked my way around then in the foot.
After I finished the foot I glued it on the wreath. I connected it on top of the bunny butt.
Then the 2nd foot.
Then decided where I wanted my nerf-type carrots & with a few strips of hot glue, they were affixed to their permanent residence.
Then I decided on pink tulle bow. I could have used something else, like ribbon or mesh ribbon, but I already had this tulle, so why not? All I did to make my bow was cut a really long strip of tulle. Then I doubled it & cut it in half. Then, fittingly, I made 2 "bunny ears" and looped them to make my bow. I took the tulle loops and un-scrunched them to get them to where I wanted them.
The wreath still looked as if it was missing something. So I dug in my tulips box.
Once I figured out where I wanted them I glued them down.
Wha-la!
I wanted to hang my finished product, but I didn't want to dig the clear wreath hanger out of the garage, so I took down a piece from the wall in the kitchen & hung it up!
It looks really good there, but I'm going to eventually dig the hanger out of the garage &
put it on the front door.
(Oh, I had a brown ribbon already on there to hang it, so I just re-located it to the top of the "egg" shape.)
Although I only spent $2, here's a breakdown of what it would have been if you had to purchase these materials from scratch:
- grapevine wreath (Hobby Lobby) around $6. )Less if you use the 40% off coupon!)
- Tulips - probably around $2/ea or less than $5 for a bunch...you can use any flower you want, hydrangeas, etc. Or if you want something different, you can spray paint a wooden letter and affix it.
- tulle - $3.99/ea if you don't catch it on sale, but if you catch Hobby Lobby's sale on ribbon you can get it 40 or 50% off!
- bunny tail, $1
- carrot nerf-things $1
Total cost if you purchase everything on sale & w/coupons: around $15!
This is not my best work, but I think it turned out well and only took about an hour or so out of my morning!
Don't be afraid to venture down the rabbit hole,
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