the cheap wreath challenge

Way back when I first began blogging, I met a gal named Charlotte. I don’t know how I stumbled across her blog, but I did, and I’m very thankful I did! Charlotte’s blog, Living Well on the Cheap, is full of DIY and thrifty goodies. Over the course of the last several months, Charlotte became one of my dearest blogging friends. We’ve exchanged emails and even took our relationship to the next level by exchanging digits and chatting on the ole’ telephone. She doesn’t know it yet, but her house is on my ‘to crash’ list, when Ben and I finally decide to follow a goal of ours and visit every SEC football stadium. We set lofty goals. Anyway, it just so happens that Charlotte and her husband Nick live within spitting distance to the LSU stadium. Cha-ching!

A couple of months ago, Charlotte and I thought it would be a neat DIY project to challenge ourselves to make the cheapest Christmas wreath we could. A couple of emails and calls later, we put our challenge into action.

So today, we’re both sharing our cheap wreaths. Here’s what I came up with:

The grand total for my cheap wreath: $1.38

Whoop, whoop.

Here’s what I did:

Ben has drawer full of old t-shirts. And every couple of months, he gets a wild hair and cleans out his old t-shirt drawer. I save the old shirts and use them as cleaning rags. So after his last wild hair, I saved a few plain white shirts to use for my wreath.

I ended up only using one plain white extra large t-shirt. I cut the shirt into 1×1 inches squares.

And then I used my new favorite wreath designing method (that I detailed here). Basically, you take a small screwdriver (I use a flat head) and punch the fabric square into a straw wreath. That’s it. It’s crazy easy.

I did leave the plastic cover on the straw wreath to eliminate some messiness. Plus, I spray painted the wreath white just in case I had any bare spots after I punched my fabric. A few punches and several cookies later, and I had this:

I like it plain. It looks so clean and simple. But I decided to add a little ‘umph’ since it was a Christmas wreath.

So I took some red spray paint and sprayed the whole wreath. Then, I added snowflake ornaments from my Christmas tree. I’ve had these ornaments forever, but I got them at an after-Christmas clearance at Target.

And then with just one snowflake:

I attached the snowflake with a sheer piece of ribbon, so I can take it off when I feel like it. It probably wouldn’t have hurt for me to go back over the wreath with another coat of spray paint. There’s a little bit of white peeking through. But I’ve only got so much time to spare during baby naps 🙂

So there she blows, my ‘cheap wreath challenge’ project.

And here’s my cost breakdown:

Straw wreath: $1.38 (courtesy of the 40% off Michael’s coupon)
1 extra-large men’s t-shirt: free
Spray paint: already owned
Ornament: already owned
Ribbon: already owned

For a grand total of: $1.38

I love the versatility of using old t-shirts like this. You could so easily do a neat school spirit wreath using  your old football shirts. Or, you could just spray paint your white tees. Or you could use your old socks. Or your super skinny jeans that you can no longer wear but hold on to just to prove you were once that size.

What?

Be sure you hop on over to Charlotte’s blog to check out her creation. We’re thinking this cheap wreath challenge could be an annual (or even semi-annual) thing. And maybe we’ll issue the challenge to our reader-friends, too 😉

Have a blessed weekend, y’all 🙂