I saw a pin on Pinterest where some clever, crafty person used a wire hanger as a frame for building an ornament wreath.
Since I have a plethora of wire hangers that never seem to be used to hang my clothes, I was inspired to come up with a way to use wire hangers in Fall decor.
I had been attempting to make a papier mache pumpkin over a balloon (see
this pin) but it turned into a glorious example of a pinstrosity. We're talking Epic Fail. Whoever was able to execute that technique successfully - I salute you, you talented crafting goddess, you.
So looking for a crafting material that was less....
gooey, I went to Dollar Tree and found these nifty spools of totally
un-gooey burlap ribbon. Score! Then by chance at Walmart, I found these slightly more expensive spools of orange burlap ribbon. Although the $2.24 Walmart spools are a little wider, both are 9 ft long and that's the important part for our purposes.
At first I was thinking of making a 2D pumpkin wreath using one wire hanger, but decided that more hangers could make a cool 3D pumpkin like I was attempting to make in the first place.
I chose to use 4 hangers to make a pumpkin with 8 "ribs" but you could also choose to use just 3 hangers.
First, bend the hangers into the shape of a 2D pumpkin.
Then place two together so that they cross at the top and bottom, and use some wire to attach them.
Then add one or two more to fill out the rest of the pumpkin shape. Bend the hooks of the hangers so they all come together and straighten them a little to resemble the stem of the pumpkin. I used heavy pliers for this part to save my fingers. Then I wrapped the "stem" in wire to make sure it all stayed put.
Now comes the fun part. Stretch a hole into the end of one ribbon and slide it down over the stem. then choose one hanger and start wrapping the ribbon around it, continuing all the way around it and back up to the stem. If you've wrapped it tight enough, you should have used about half of the spool, and can now wrap another whole hanger with the rest. I used wire to attach the end of the ribbon to the stem when I was done.
Repeat with another spool of ribbon and you will have covered all 4 hangers and are now ready to wrap the stem.
I chose to wrap my stem using jute and a hot glue gun.
To sum up-
Materials needed:
3 or 4 wire clothes hangers
Wire (I used a fine gauged florists wire that I had on hand)
Wire cutters and pliers
2 nine foot long spools of burlap ribbon
Jute
Hot glue gun, sticks of hot melt glue
Instructions:
1. Bend hangers into pumpkin silhouettes, leaving the hooks as a "stem"
2. Attach hangers at the top and bottom with wire so that they cross and make a 3D pumpkin shape
3. Using pliers, bend the hooks so they come together and form a stem shape. Secure with wire.
4. Wrap hangers with ribbon, using one spool per two hangers, secure ends with wire or glue gun.
5. Wrap "stem" using jute and glue gun.
I hope you enjoy this craft as much as I did. :)
Please post pictures, links, comments below to let me know how your project went, or to share your ideas!
