Cornstalk Wreath

One of the funnest projects I've done this year was making a cornstalk wreath. When our landlord told Brigham we could have his cornstalks, I immediately went online to find what cute crafts I could make and I fell in love with the idea on this blog of a cornstalk wreath with a pine cone middle. First, it would be free to make, second, it was pretty dang easy, and third, I thought it would look pretty fantastic.

Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of the crafting process but I do have pictures of the end result and I can tell you how it went.

First, I sent Brigham out to chop down the cornstalks. Then I stripped off the leaf things from the stalks. This part started out ok...until I realized the stalks were covered in bugs. Namely spiders and earwigs. I can do spiders as long as they don't touch me, but earwigs completely creep me out. I did about ninety percent of the leave-stripping and finally had to call Brigham out to finish and to shake the bugs out of all the leaves so I could touch them again.

Brigham doesn't understand why earwigs freak me out. He says he used to play with them as a kid (who does that?!). I asked him why he didn't get pinched and he says they don't pinch.

Then WHAT THE HECK are those PINCHERS sticking off their butt for?! (ugh this picture is so disgusting, I can't stop shuddering)

I read online and they DO pinch.

Brigham and I both got a couple bug bites from this first part, so if you don't like bugs find someone that does to help you out.

Back to the crafting...

After the leaves were stripped and de-bugged, I took a hanger stretched out to a circle shape and then used twine to weave the corn stalk leaves to the hanger, using the method from the blog. It didn't take too long, about an hour or two.

The other fun part was being able to take the bare-ish corn stalks and bundle them together to stand as another fun fall decoration by the door. Two crafts in one!

To get the pine cone middle, we took a trip to Brigham's dad's house and gathered pine cones from under the pine cone tree. Lydia really enjoyed helping with this part. 

Then I took the twine and attached them to the hanger as well, only in the center of the cornstalks. This was a lot harder than weaving the stalks and took me awhile. I eventually switched to floral wire because it was thinner and less visible with the pine cones.

Once you get a good base of attached pine cones you can just pack the rest of the pine cones in to fill up the gaps. Word to the wise, I found out pine cones like to hide spiders and bugs as well. That led to careful examining and handling of each pine cone before attaching.

Once the pine cones were attached I was done! And because you use a hanger, there is a built in hook to hang it with. The lady whose blog I got the idea from, cut her wreath down smaller but I liked it big so I left it how it was. It wouldn't fit on my door but it looks just as cozy above the fireplace.

I had Lydia stand next to it to show how big it is, and because she helped me gather the pine cones. She and the wreath are both pretty fancy, so they look pretty good together :)

I LOVE the wreath; I look at it all the time marveling that I made something that cool (it does look a lot cooler in person than in these pictures). I have to say it was a fun fall project to do, bugs and all.