Happy December!

It's finally here! Today marks the start of the official 'festive season' at our house. The Advent calendar is up, the countdown tree calendar is out, the decorations are appearing and the tree will go up tonight, with the kids' help. Yay!

Back in October, I came across a post from Eddie Ross from last Christmas, showing a gorgeous bauble wreath. It was love at first sight. :sigh: I knew I had to make one. It seems that half the blogosphere has had the same idea this year - they are popping up everywhere.

Here is my version: Gather your supplies - a wire coathanger, something to unwind the hanger and shape it with, some craft glue and baubles in co-ordinating colours (allow more than you think you'll need - trust me on this).

The fabulous Eddie used 80 vintage glass balls. My version is a tad more thrifty. I used about 50 balls of various sizes - plastic ones from Coles, Crazy Clarks, Spotlight and my decoration box! Before you start the assembly, take the time to pull off the caps and glue them back on. (I neglected this step and was very sorry and frustrated - no room for 'she'll be right' here.) Hot glue is the quickest.

Once you have unwound the coathanger and shaped it into a circle, start threading the balls on. Make sure to vary the size, so that the smaller ones fill the gaps and you can't see too much wire.

Leave a small amount of wire at the end. Once all the balls are threaded, push them together tightly and bend the last bit around the base of the hook. (This is the point where your baubles will start shooting off if you have neglected to do the GLUE step! It would have made a great 'funny home video', but not from where I was standing. You have been warned.)

As every man and his dog is making one of the wreaths this year, I though I would personalize mine a little. Enter a feather boa from the $2 shop.

I pulled off individual feathers and dipped the end into some glue. Then I just poked them randomly in between the balls, as close as possible to the wire.

Ta-Da! With the addition of a matching piece of ribbon (purely for looks), I hung the wreath from a mirror using the hook of the coathanger, just bent around to face the back.

Pretty huh?