My vintage Christmas ornament wreaths for 2016: Silver and gold

I now have been making several vintage Christmas ornament wreaths for four years. Last year, I gave away two from my stash, this year, three. Then, happy that some stuff had left the house, I spent the weekend making two new wreaths — one for a friend and one for myself. The two wreath designs are  linked, because she has helped me in some special ways this year. I made my wreath in silver (we are all made of stardust), and hers, in the classic complement, gold.

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 Above: I  found the ornament of the two midcentury modern quails (?) just a week ago at the Goodwill. I am working very hard to stop holding onto every gosh-darned precious thing I find, and instead, to set more free. So off the rare birds went — appropriately, too, representing my friend and me. You can also see, far left, that a tiny vintage porcelain owl went into this wreath, as my friend is very wise. I found the owl at an estate sale — tiny creatures like this are now on my hunting list, too.
 Above: Another thing I came up with during this project. An ornament broke. In pretty big pieces. Instead of throwing it away, I glued pieces of it onto other ornaments (plain ones in the outer ring) for texture, effect and golly, for art! I glued a few pieces of that broken gold ornament onto my silver wreath, too. That is one of the several ways the wreaths are connected. 

I put a vintage pine cone elf into my wreath. And a little porcelain Astro! Both found at estate sales this summer.

Above: My silver wreath. My goodness — and this is ADVICE: you need a LOT of ornaments to make these wreaths! And I need a lot of time. I spent about seven hours on Saturday making the gold wreath, then the same number of hours on Sunday rolling over into Monday morning working on the silver wreath. Sunday I needed to take a break. So, I took Astro to Petco for a walk and buy him snow booties and some treats. It’s been freezing here! I also went to Big Lots, where I bought Sterilite wreath containers for $8 each. 

I gave my friend her wreath yesterday. She ooohed and aaahed, of course. I had also brought along mine to show her, especially to point out the its and bits that linked the two wreaths.

When I came home, I promptly hung my wreath to display for the rest of the season. Heck. Maybe, year ’round; stardust is forever.

I walked away and about five seconds later: CRASH. Yup. It fell. I had used the wreath base from my very first wreath (which I dismantled this year). I didn’t realize it, but I had used a different method then to attach the wire hanger. It failed. 

The wreath seems to have slid down the door, rather than fallen flat on its face. So *fortunately* I only lost about 10 ornaments. Back to my glue gun.

My fallen star shall rise again momentarily, molecules rearranged anew.

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