... help - it is invasion of chickens in our home :-)

♥ Happy Easter, my dears ♥

♥ ♥ ♥

And I was crocheting also of course - but about it in my next post ;-)

Happy Birthday, our sweet puppies :-)

It's like yesterday, when we helped our Sunny to give birth to her first litter and now, they celebrate their first Birthday. The time is running so fast. We wish you excellent health and love and care and we hope to see you soon!

♥ ♥ ♥

The Wicker Heart tutorial

Because of the bright colors of our wreath, I wouldn't use much embellishment, this time. I needed to add the contrast color. So I decided to add wicker heart in wonderful raspberry red. My favorite color for making the contrasts. You could buy this heart in some flowers shop, DIY shops or you could easily make it by yourself. If you would like to make it, I wrote the tutorial for making easy DIY wicker heart decoration/embellishment :-)

For this heart I used natural wicker. Natural wicker is well known for its strength and durability, and for the high level of beauty and comfort that an expert craftsman can produce. Materials used can be any part of a plant, such as the cores of cane or rattan stalks, or whole thicknesses of plants, as with willow switches (www.wikipedia.com). I used red colored wicker. You could buy it in some DIY shop or flowers shop, like me. Two twigs of 1 m / 39 inched long will be enough for one heart.

The width of my twigs is 3 mm, but it could buy thiner (placed on the wreath), wider, there are many variation of the wicker in the shops.

Before you will work with wicker, roll the twigs and place them into the water - 5 minutes will be enough. The twigs should be wet when you will work with them, if you put them into the water, they will draw water into the pores and they become very flexible. If you will not do it, they could easily break up.

Anyway – do you see my new bowl? I love it! :-)

Note: if you will have colored wicker as I, it could slightly discolor, but there will be nothing on your hands, only the water could be colored a little bit.

Now cut two pieces of wicker of 30 cm / 11.8 inches lenght.  Fold them in the half and join them by some thin wire or elastic band, like me.

Then shape the heart nicely and join the ends using wire or elastic band again. Let it dry, to the basic shape of the heart will be strong enough to you could continue. After 20 minutes begin with rolling one wet twig around the heart. Dry the rest of the wicker again – for 5 minutes. Roll it nice, irregularly, but strong, to the shape of the heart stayed nice after dry also.

Let it dry again and you beautiful wicker heart decoration is ready :-) You could make many other sizes, use any colors. I made this heart for my wreath and the size of finished heart is 7 cm/ inches 2.8 height and 5 cm / 2 inches width.

Back to our wreath. Now sew the heart easily on the wreath, using common sewing thread. 

Finishing of the spring wreath: 

You made all tree parts: The Star Stitch Wreath, The Ribbon's Bow and the Wicker Heart also. Only, what is missing is beads garland (you could buy it in Flowers shop od DIY shops again) and roll the beads garland around the wreath. It will add nice gently “touch”. Use thin nylon thread for hanging of the wreath. 

I hope, you like to make this wreath as same as I. 

I will look froward to seeing the pictures :-)

The Ribbon's Bow tutorial

I was always scaring of making the ribbon's bows. But, I noticed, that I was scared needlessly. I will show you the bow, which is nice and easy like a piece of cake :-) 

Use 1,6 cm/ 0.6 inches width ribbon in light pink color and cut 25 pieces of 11 cm/4.3 inches lenght.

Now you will take a longer needle with tiny “eye” and pull the thread through it, use double thread and make a big, strong knot about 8 cm / 3.1 inches from the end. Then take one small piece of ribbon, fold it in the half and insert the needle through the ribbon, like you see on the picture below. Let it into the needle and continue with another ribbon pieces by same way.

When you will have all ribbons on the needle, then pull them on the thread and make a strong knot (I made 3 knots, for sure :-) ).

Tadaaaah, your ribbon's bow is finished :-)

The size of my ribbon bow is 9 cm width and it is enough for my wreath. But you could use another ribbons, different width and any number of ribbon's pieces, what you like most. 

Now take your wreath, you made last time and sew the ribbon's bow in the middle of the wreath. Use common sewing thread.