DIY Scrapbook Paper Wreath – Putting Ancient (?) Paper to Good Use

My seventh wedding anniversary is quickly approaching, and I cannot believe it’s been that long since I walked down the aisle.  Even more astonishing to me, however, is the fact that I still have leftover scrapbook paper I purchased seven years ago for my wedding guest book.  I am not a pack rat by any means, so it’s strange to me that I still have this.
Anyway, I guess I’m glad I kept this paper all these years because this week I put it to good use by making a simple fall wreath for the interior of my back door.  I’m begging you to please ignore the fact that my back door desperately needs a paint job, and instead, focus on my cute paper wreath.  Thanks.

This project was a little tedious and sticky (the glue was driving me nuts), but it was the perfect mindless project to complete in front of the TV at night.
For the base I used a flat 12″ chipboard wreath form that I found in the floral department at Michaels.  This only cost around $3.

Then, I cut 9, 12″x12″ pieces of scrapbook paper into 1″ wide strips.  I used my paper cutter for this, which was a huge timesaver.

From there, I created my outer row of the wreath.  I took some of my paper strips and cut them down to 8″ long, putting aside the 4″ long remnants to serve as my inner-most row.  Then, I took the 8″ long strips and bent them in half, gluing the ends together.  I then placed glue on the back side of the now 4″ folded and glued strips, and glued them about .5″ from the top of the wreath form.  I continued this all the way around the wreath form, leaving an approximate 2″ gap for the ribbon.

Next, I took some of the uncut 12″ long strips of paper and cut them in half (so, into 6″ strips).  I repeated the process of folding and gluing, and affixed these now 3″ strips as the middle layer of my wreath.  Again, I continued all the way around the wreath form, leaving a 2″ gap for the bow.
Then I took my remnant 4″ strips (leftover from cutting the 8″ long strips first), and folded and glued these.  These became the inner layer of my wreath.  I again left the 2″ gap for the bow.
Finally, I added a bow at the bottom of my wreath.  I then used some of that leftover ribbon to create the hanging leaf portion of the wreath that you see in the innermost circle.  I folded the ribbon in half and hot glued it to the back of the wreath form.  I then hot glued my leaf die cuts (also purchased at Michaels) to that ribbon.

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out and am glad to have used up some of my leftover scrapbook paper!  If I ever do this again, however, I will use double-sided scrapbook paper.  Some of mine is single-sided and I don’t like how you can see the white inside part of the paper when it’s looped over like it is.  It isn’t really that big of a deal, but I think it would look better with a color or pattern on the inside as well.
I hope you like my paper wreath!  Thanks for checking it out.