Sunday, December 21, 2014

5' "Good News" wreath - easy DIY

Jesus is God's good news. (Some people call that the "gospel" in church-speak.)

This Christmas I wanted to remind myself of that, far away from home. So I rolled into cones over a hundred newspaper pages and various paper. I included Chinese, Indonesian, English - and even the many languages of assembly instructions from IKEA. I saved some candy wrappers made of dried leaves, too. One piece of tape is all it takes to hold the cones in shape.

A 2' square of cardboard from a storage boxes became the base. I began gluing around in a circle. The first layer was 5' in diameter and took a lot of floor space!

Sticky cones adhere easily to cardboard

The second circle of shorter cones fit on top. The inner ring consisted of small cones and candy wrappers. I drew a few holly leaves on a paper doily, trimmed off the lacy borders, and glued it over the messy center. Finally, I glued a "Merry Christmas" cake decoration in the middle and let it dry overnight.

At this point it only needed a bit of tucking ends in for symmetry
When we flipped it over in preparation to hanging it, we found it needed more support for the outside ring of cones. The newspaper didn't have the stiffness for stability. We glued a bigger sheet of cardboard on top of the existing piece and reinforced the slit for hanging with another small square of cardboard. A single nail in the wall holds it up: it's bulky but not heavy.

In need of more support
It's big - and bold. Our neighbors and guests gasp when they see it. (Yeah, it's that big.) 

And it reminds me of Jesus as God's Good News ... as hoped.

Up it goes: filling a big white wall above the 7' IKEA sofa.
Note the un-pretty pull chain for the fan that keeps tropical air moving.

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