Craft: How to Make a Shiny CD Christmas Wreath in Less Than 15 Minutes!

One of the great things about Christmas is the time leading up to the actual day, where people get excited about making gifts or decorating with handmade crafts. Creating a Christmas Holiday Wreath is not only fun, but it can cost next to nothing. Making a contemporary Christmas wreath is a great conversation piece and very easy to create. One kind of recycled craft wreath you can make is a large shiny silvery mirror looking wreath made out of CDs. The CD Wreath can be made from promotional CD's you've collected from junk mail, such as Netscape or Aol disks or earthlink, etc. Or, because CD's are so inexpensive, you can buy a cheap spindle to make a few wreaths. Making a recycled CD wreath also helps the environment because you are helping landfills have a little less garbage. Imagine the impact of thousands or millions of people making recycled CD wreaths and the impact that would have!

This CD Wreath is both simple and elegant. The natural shine and circular shape of the CD's form a lovely contemporary Christmas wreath, that is delicately and modestly embellished creating an airy, almost angelic halo feel. The light just bounces and sparkled and there is just a hint of Christmas colors because most of the color just shimmers through on its own.

Here's How To Create A Shiny CD Christmas Wreath in Less Than 15 minutes!

You'll need:

14 CD's (if you want a larger wreath you can use more CD's)
Some red metallic curling ribbon
Some red thin wire garland (used for decorations and gifts)
A silk white flower such as a white rose or white poinsettia
Hot glue gun/glue
Scissors

Cost: Less than $3
You probably have the metallic Christmas curling ribbon and CD's lying around the house already. I purchased a package of red thin wire garland for $1 at the Dollar Store, and this particular kind had little stars on it. The silk white poinsettia also cost $1 at the dollar store. You can also get a small bundle of white silk rosebuds at Wal-Mart for less than 50 cents. The stick of glue for the glue gun cost me less than 10 cents.

Instructions:

1. Remove the CD's from their cardboard mailers or plastic packaging and lay in a stack. Count out 14.

2. Lay a large piece of cardboard or some open cut paper bags, so you don't drip any glue on your table.

3. Lay CD's in a circle shaped wreath so you can guestimate where and how you will be gluing and overlapping. If you want to use a sewing pencil or crayon to mark lines to let you know where CD's will be joined, now is the time to do so. Write on the side with the advertising.

4. Heat glue gun and begin gluing CD's together, one overlapping the next. You want the advertising side of the CD face up when you are gluing, because the advertising side will become the back of the CD wreath. Keep at least part of the CD center hole exposed so there is room to run the wire and curled ribbon through.

5. As you glue each CD, press the 2 glued CD's with your hand for 10 seconds to make sure glue is flattened and bond is secure. Repeat the procedure until you finally have a full circle wreath of CD's.

6. Turn CD wreath over, so now it is the plain silver shiny side up, with no advertisements. Take a cotton handkerchief or CD cleaning cloth and wipe the CD's to rid of any fingerprints.

7. Begin loosely threading red metallic curled ribbon and thin red wire garland through the various CD center holes. You can curl the metallic ribbon with scissors.

8. Attach your white silk flower to the top of the Christmas wreath either with hot glue or with wire through one of the CD holes.

9. To hang, you can use the Christmas wire garland to form a loop to hang from, or you can hot glue a metal picture hanger if you prefer. The wreath is lightweight enough, that the wire loop is sturdy enough to hang it with.

Enjoy!
To read about Wreath History visit this link:

http://www.4wreaths.com/wreath_history.htm