Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Saggy Ornament Wreath

Alright. I'll do it. I'll pull out the first Christmas post of the 2014-2015 Christmas season. I realize I'm stuffing Thanksgiving a little (hehe, nice pun there Marquette. Why thank you!), but this one is great. Especially for those of us who haven't started decorating yet because either we're Thanksgiving purists and the Christmas boxes cannot be cracked one second earlier than December 1st, or we're bah humbugging it this year (I'll have you know the Google spell checker didn't even give the squiggly red underline with humbugging...apparently it's a real word because Google said so and Google knows all), or we just haven't even thought about it yet really. This project looks like a quick and easy DIY Christmas Wreath of glass ball happiness, but, as Katy found out, it doesn't always go as planned. Katy sent in the two photos she took her inspiration from, and two photos of her results.

The Original Pins
So, as is all too common on Pinterest, along the line of pinning the wrong picture got attributed to the wrong blog/pin. The picture below is the pin that Katy pinned, but it wasn't on the blog it linked to. I did finally find the original post and have it linked below. But Katy didn't have that link and so she had to wing it. 
(source)
I did some digging on the link the pin led to and I found the 2nd photo she sent us on the blog:
(source)
Finding this post was the key to the puzzle. But first...let me show you Katy's results.

The Pinstrosity


Katy's exact words were, "I like my festive, but saggy, balls."

So what happened here? Lack of wire strength. As there were no directions linked to by the pin, Katy had to go off the pictures. The 2nd picture of the original pins looks like it is the start of an ornament wreath, but after digging around and finding the original post the photo came from a wreath was not in order, but this fun chandelier decoration:

(source)
If you look at the post, Mike uses flexible wire to string the ornaments on as the wire doesn't have to hold a specific shape. They just needed something sturdy to string the ornaments on to rest them in the chandelier.

When I found the original source to the ornament wreath photo that showed what this project truly needs as far as wire goes. They used a coat hanger. You need sturdy wire that isn't going to bend with the weight of the ornaments.

So it ended up being another case of the mis-pinned photo...that dastardly imp struck again. It gets the best of all of us. I hate finally opening up one of my pins that I've been excited about only to find the internet imp has switched things around and that actual picture is no where to be found where the pin led. I don't know why all the sudden it's an internet imp, but apparently that's what's going on with all our web woes.

Moral of the story? If your wire is tired and not very strong, your wreath will be saggy and won't last all that long.

5 comments:

  1. I just made one with the coat hanger and it came out great! I didn't glue the balls together though, and since I used cheap dollar store balls, I should've glued the top hanging cap on because they have a tendency to pop off. Otherwise it came out nicely!

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  2. When we made these we glued balls onto a wreath base!

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  3. I think that if I were to try this, I'd still string the bulbs onto the wire, but then tie the wire to a rigid form (like a coat hanger) to get the round shape. Glue tends to dry out over time, and then the ornaments would start to fall off...I like to go for long-term effect!

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  4. Hoo-nelly, I am glad I read this. I have all the makings for pine cone wreaths with wire. I need to sent out some dry cleaning clearly, to get better wire. Not even going to try till I have that.

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  5. I just made one two year ago with a metallic hanger and still looks pretty! Maybe just need a stronger metallic hanger.
    http://lforlilyblog.blogspot.mx/

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