Friends and Football Fall Wreath

It’s that time of year again. This Saturday is the debut of SEC football. We love to have friends over and make snacks on College Gamedays. Sometimes I make football snacks for just our family. Because we like to hang out together, eat, and watch football games in the fall, I decided to incorporate football into some of my autumn decor elements. I’m also adding aquamarine (and maybe a little bit of purple) this year. My Friends and Football Fall Wreath is the perfect combination of fall colors and shapes, football, and aquamarine blue for our home.

Materials Needed:

grapevine wreath ( I bought mine from Walmart)
Dollar Tree leaves (they have a vein/stem that is also bendable wire-great for wreath-making!)
floral pick wheat
small wooden footballs from Walmart
3 rolls of 1 1/2 ” ribbon, in yellow-orange, orange gingham, and polka dot aquamarine grosgrain ribbon
floral wire
hot glue gun and glue sticks
spray starch
Friends Football Family sign from Dollar Tree

Directions:

First, plug in the hot glue gun. Let it heat up while you make a hanger for the wreath using the floral wire.

Hot glue the Dollar Tree sign to the top and bottom of the wreath. Cut the floral pick wheat, then insert it into the wreath. I didn’t like the red wheat with my color scheme, and later removed it. I hot glued each wheat pick to the wreath, for added security.

There are so many ways to make bows. This time, I wanted to try something different. I began with a tutorial from Kippi at Home (I LOVE her wreaths), then went off on my own tangent. She has plenty of good ideas for bows and wreaths. First, I cut three 50″ strips in each ribbon color, then folded each one over about 6.” Since my ribbons weren’t wired, I sprayed them with starch to make them stiff.

Stack the ribbons on top of each other, then twist an 18″ wire just above the bottom of the end of the folded over ribbon.

Now, you need 3 more sets of loops like these. Fold the ribbon ends in toward the center 3 more times, twisting the wire after each fold. At the end you will have 12 ribbon loops. You should have plenty of ribbon leftover to make whatever length tail you desire.

Shape the loops until you achieve the desired result. If your ribbon is unwired like mine, give it another good squirting of spray starch. Once it drys, attach it to the top of the wreath using the leftover wire you twisted in the center of the bow. If you would rather make a bow the classic way, click here.

I also embellished my wreath with some “ribbon flowers.” I cut six 8″ pieces of each type of ribbon, giving me 18 pieces in all. When you finish, you should have 6 ribbon flowers. Fold the ribbon ends in half, then cut downward diagonally, to make an inverted triangle shape at the ends of your ribbon. I cut the same type of ends on the bow above.

Stack the ribbons on top of each other, as pictured above, then twist a 6″ piece of floral ribbon around the middle, creating a ribbon flower. Spray with starch. I attached wired orange leaves to four of the flowers, then snaked them into the wreath with the leaf’s stem. The remaining ribbon flowers were connected directly to the grapevine wreath with floral wire. Hot glue one football in the bottom center, in between two of the ribbon flowers with orange leaves. Fill in any gaps with the other two footballs. In a nutshell, I placed two ribbon flowers with orange leaves on either side of the bottom center. Then, I placed two ribbon flowers on either side of the wreath, one with an orange leaf, and one without.