Puff Ball Wreath

Here's another one of my vintage projects....

Many years ago (sounds like a novel!), like about 40 years (yikes!), I made my mother a puff ball wreath using up scraps of fabric from my sewing projects.  Back then, as I was learning to sew I mainly made garments.  As I was in 4-H, we started with an apron made from gingham (mine was orange and white), then moved on to dress construction.  My first dress was sleeveless with back and front darts, facings, and a back zipper.  Then we moved on to adding sleeves the next year.  Anyhow, I found I loved to sew and made a lot of my clothes through junior high and high school.

I made the wreath, as I said, for Mom.  Since it is made using a styrofoam  wreath as a base, over time it degraded until one day it just fell off the wall and broke.  Mom told me she cried and tried to fix it, but the base had dried out too much.  She did save all of the puff balls from it and gave them to me.  I found them the other day and with the help of my daughter put it back together again.

This project was made when I was about 12 to 14 years old, judging by the fabric in it.  It was strange sitting with Amanda working on this and telling her what I had made from each piece of fabric, as I could remember.  I told her that as I made the wreath when I was a kid I never would have thought that one day I would be sitting with my daughter working on it.

These are the puff balls.  I probably had about 300-400 of them.  I made them by cutting a circle of fabric, about 3 inches in diameter, stuffing a cotton ball in the middle and gathering up the edges with my fingers.  Next I wrapped a piece of wire around the gathers to hold it close.  The wire is then stuck into the foam.  I used a 10 inch stryofoam wreath as the base.

You can see some of the glue and foam from the original wreath in the picture!

Dabbing a bit of plain old white glue on the wire, you just start sticking puff balls into the foam, getting them as close as possible to hide the gathered end.

Love those vintage fabrics!  You can see some of the same fabrics in the yo-yos that I made here.

This is the completed wreath.  Every time I look at it I recall some project or another that I made as a kid.  This would be a great summer project for your young teen, letting them make a memory wreath and using up all of those fabric scraps!

Happy Crafting!

Kathy