Felt Flower Wreath and Beating the January Blues

I won't admit how long this wreath and felt have been waiting for me to finish what I started. 

Okay, on second thought, I will. 
September--of last year, craft night. 
I had good intentions. I ordered the materials, attended the activity and good friends demonstrated how easy it was. But I didn't have the time to stay and finish it that night. I brought it home unfinished. 
I had a strategy though, by leaving it out in the open, as opposed to say, the back wall of my closet or the bottom drawer of a dresser, I figured if I can see it, I won't forget it. Oh no, I didn't forget it. Rather, I remembered with the passing of each month how unlikely it would be that this wreath would see the light of day. It had been relegated to the clutter corner, you know that corner of whatever room in your house where projects go to collect dust. And mock you. Every time you walk by. 

Fast forward to the new year. Holidays were done. Food, family and fun all seemed to assume their usual positions and the only thing on the horizon was the vast wilderness of January.

This is the point at which I turn to cleaning.

I tend to snowball de-clutter. I see one thing in the clutter, in this case a set of three picture frames, and I think - I can hang those up now. And in the process of pulling the frames from the clutter and rearranging what is on the wall, I can't stop myself. I deconstruct the clutter pile and it becomes like a child's toy that was put together incorrectly and I need to disassemble it in order to reassemble it properly. Oh, yes, I still have a bit of clutter in the corner, but it is organized now, and smaller. The pictures are hung, the irrelevant has been discarded. And the wreath. Well, the wreath is finished.

Even though a project like this seems to take me longer than I think it will, I didn't even mind the cutting, the gluing. No. The closer I get to completion the better I feel. 

And I think this is why:

"Nothing is so fatiguing

as the eternal hanging on of an

uncompleted task." 

William James 

 It felt like with every felt flower I finished, I was that much closer to beating the getting-nothing-done-blues. It seems that there isn't anything as energizing as completing that eternally hanging on task.

So before I get to my usual non-how-to, I will leave with a bit of non-advice. If you need an energy boost, find a little project you've left undone and finish it. Don't be surprised when you're full of all sorts of crazy motivation to tackle other projects. You've been warned.

(Note: Unless you are the kind of person that has finished every project you've ever started. In that case, I need to be reading your blog ;) 

I will try to describe what I did in less time and space than what it took to actually make the wreath.

1 Grapevine wreath - craft store, unless you have grapvines and can make your own, then by all means, knock yourself out.

4 Felt rectangles - this was part of the craft night order, but I'm going to guess here and say you can get them at a craft store also

Scissors - do yourself a favor and get the ergonomic handles

Glue gun - if you don't like minor burns you could try fabric glue, but I'm not patient enough for that

The basic steps are these: Cut felt, roll flowers, glue them to the wreath. But I found watching a few YouTube videos helpful before I just dove in.

I liked this one. You may like others. 

Also, I'm thinking of adding embellishments, pearls or gems or something blingy for the centers. But until then, with your permission, I'm calling this project complete.