Tin Can Flowers Wreath Copycat

One of my favorite past-time is looking at upscale online stores to get inspiration and ideas on how to re-create an item for far less than what they're asking!

Who doesn't love saving money by making a good knock-off or copycat craft? Take a look at this group of iron roses wreaths I found on Anthropologie and its' sister off-shoot, Terrain:

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Right now, they're on sale for $28.50-$43.50, but were originally $38-$58.00. Sale or no sale, sorry, I would never buy a door wreath - especially one that cost this much! They're too easy to make! And having made lots of flowers from soda and beer cans like here, here, here, here, here, and here, re-creating one similar  is right on time for this month's theme of High End Dupes or Look for Less for our DIY Challenge hosted by Terrie @Decorate and More with Tip! 

In case you don't know about this DIY Challenge, on the 1st Wednesday of each month, a group of talented bloggers create something based on a theme or material that's selected by Terri!

Check out how I made my look for less:

Materials:

• Clean Aluminum Soda Cans 
• Utility knife/craft knife
• Craft Scissors
• Flower Petal 3" punch
• Flower paper template
• Ball stylus
• Foam (thick)
• White Chalk, lavender, yellow, orchid acrylic craft paint/brush
• Quick Hold - all purpose quick dry adhesive
• Wire floral hoops - 14" and 10"

 How to:

Begin by washing out the soda cans to remove any sticky residue and let dry. Using a craft or x-acto knife, make a slice near the edge of the can big enough for a scissor blade. *CAUTION:  Be very careful handling the sharp edges of cut cans.

Using craft or old scissors, cut around top or bottom to remove.

Then cut through the length of can to .  .  .

remove the remaining end. Finish sides by cutting off any slivers or jagged edges.

Next, insert the aluminum can piece into the flower puncher to punch-out one large flower with five petals!  

I was able to punch out four flower petals per can.

I think I used 15 empty soda cans (which I got from my son) for this project. But I lost count.

Since the base of the flowers were larger and had more petals, I had to make a paper template to manually cutout .  .  . 

enough larger flowers to fit around the wire wreaths.

Next, paint flower petals with white multi-surface acrylic paint first to cover lettering that's on the back and to help with adhesion of the acrylic paint colors. Let dry. The petals will take on a different feel and texture, almost leather-like, by painting them! 

Then, paint the flowers three different colors and let dry. The colors of the wreaths at Anthropologie were quite muted with what looked like blemishes throughout. But I wanted to have more vibrant shades for mine - so I used lavender, orchid and yellow!

Once dry, roll the top flower petals on thick foam  with a ball stylus to mimic the dimensional look of the top petals. You can also use the end of a cooking utensil or round handle if you don't have a ball stylus.

To assemble, start with the larger petal and then one of the smaller petals, gluing on top, straggling it in between petals.  Then glue on the curved shaped petal using Quick Hold contact adhesive from the makers of E6000.

I glued on this one on the wire floral hoop to see how it would work.

And then placed flowers around the hoop. But I didn't glued them down like this, but.  .  .

glued down each flower separately, petal tip to petal tip, alternating colors.

The wreaths at Anthropologie were pictured individually - a larger one, by itself and .  .  .

 then with a smaller wreath inside the larger one.

I love creating something for less money, and making these wreaths costs me the price of the floral hoops @$3.99 and $2.99 each. The empty soda cans were throw-a-ways from my son which were free!  Everything else, I considered free since I already had them on hand. Not bad - if I say so myself!

Be sure to check out all of the wonderful High End Dupes projects from the participants in this month DIY Challenge:

Decorate and More with Tip - Terrie

Through a Vintage Door - Teresa

Sweet Southern Grace - Shae

Patina and Paint - Tammy

Purple Hues and Me - Gail

LeCultivateur - Emily

DIY Knock-Off Ribbon Plumes

Some of my favorite crafting projects have been done with ribbon! I work with ribbon all the time and the worst part about it is the fraying that might happen. There are several methods that you can use to stop ribbon from fraying or unraveling, but what if you actually want it to unravel!  That's right! This is all about unraveling ribbon to make beautiful plumes - a great way to "knock-off" a pampas grass design I saw on Crate and Barrel! Don't you just love figuring out how to re-create something you saw in a high-end shop? Perfect for this month's DIY Challenge, "Get Your DIY On Knock-Off Challenge" 

But unraveling ribbon isn't all that easy. The trick is finding those threads that are continuous on the ribbon and unwinds it all. And it can be tricky because all ribbons are not created equal. There're the ones where you can find that particular thread - like here: You simply start pulling the threads on the end and suddenly it's starts to unravel - the thread coming off - going back and forth - unraveling the ribbon!

And then there's the other kind of ribbon where no matter how hard you try, the one thread that's suppose to be holding it all together just doesn't exist. And I think it has something to do with the quality of the ribbon and how it's made. Like this type pictured below:
The ribbon is very rough and not soft like the other type. I got it from Hobby Lobby for 50% off. HL has ribbon on sale for half price just about every other week. The sides of this ribbon seems to be stamped sealed and not woven. It's the only ribbon I had that was long enough to make a few plumes. I didn't have enough of the first ribbon or any other ribbon that I could find "the thread" that unravels it all! 

Do you see the large safety pin in the picture? That is what I used mostly to remove the threads from the length of the ribbon. I also used a seam ripper when my hand started to cramp (something that happens often - not just for this project). But I'm jumping ahead of showing you how I made the ribbon plumes. So let's begin by gathering what you need: 

Supplies

• Ribbon - 1.5 width
• Double-sided tape
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Large safety pin/seam ripper/small brush
• Cutting board surface 
• Floral stem wire (16-18 gauge)

Instructions

After gathering your supplies, start cutting about thirty, 5" ribbon strips to make one plume. Next add double sided tape to one of the short end edges. Do this for all the ribbon strips.After adding the double sided tape, cut the side edges, sometimes called the welting, off of the ribbon strips.Then start removing the fray threads from the end.Use the tip end of a large safety pin to scrape the fraying threads off to reveal soft silk-like fibers. I like using a small cutting board as a work surface to scrape the ribbon. It's nice and sturdy and seems to make it all work better.Use a small brush .  .  to help remove the gathered loose threads that bunch up from scraping the ribbon.  .  .creating a nice smooth silky fringed piece. It took me about four minutes to get it to look like this. Imagine doing thirty of these - it can be very time consuming! So take a seat in front of the tv and binge watch a good movie or series! Better yet, listen to some good music to make it all go quicker!To add the ribbon fringe to the stem wire to create the plume, remove the backing from the double-sided tape and .  .  .place the tip of the wire on the edge of the tape and .  .  .begin rolling the ribbon fringe around the wire stem .  .  .                                                

until the ribbon fringe is secured around and onto the wire stem. Isn't this beginning to look fabulous!Continue adding the ribbon fringes to the stem wire, staggering the tape slightly below the previous ribbon fringe.

Adding each fringe on - one by one.

I tried grouping the fringes together on the tape for the second plume I made - either way is ok, but I prefer adding the fringe on separately .  .  .

to make a beautiful plume!

Welcome to our monthly DIY Challenge hosted by Terrie @Decorate and More with Tip! On the first Wednesday of the month, Terrie hosts a DIY Challenge with a group of talented bloggers who love to create budget friendly décor for their homes. For the month of April we were tasked with creating a DIY Knock-Off! 

If you're coming over from Cindy @Cloches and Lavender, welcome!  To see more knock-off ideas click on the blog titles below to check out their awesome knock-off creations!

                        

Decorate and More with Tip                              Sweet Southern Grace

         

Cloches and Lavender                                    Purple Hues and Me

                   

B4 and Afters                                                                Patina and Paint

Bluesky at Home