Spring Dream Catcher Wreath

While in Utah on spring break, my cousin was scrolling through Pinterest on my phone, looking for a cute way to decorate her door for spring. While scrolling, she came across this pin of a dream catcher wreath.

We both admired how cute it was and Becca told me she was going to pin it for me, kind of as a joke in a you-should-make-this-but-we-both-know-you-probably-never-will type of way.

Little did she know, I LOVE dream catchers...and most things Native American really. And with this feminine look I had my heart set on one of my own. Plus, I knew I already had most of the materials at home.

When I got home I looked up a couple more dream catcher wreaths like this one:

And decided to wing it making my own with what I had. So here's my outline of making a dream catcher wreath:

First of all you need a wreath -I happened to have this one I had purchased last year at the dollar store, for a project such as this - and some twine or string. I picked my most frayed twine for the shabby-chic type of look.

Note: If you want the wreath a pretty color like the top example, make sure you spray paint it and let it dry first. I wanted it the pretty blue in the example, but I didn't have any cute colors of spray paint and I wasn't willing to wait to go out and buy any. I just went with what I had.

Having made a dream catcher in 5th grade, I knew the basics of how to weave the rope, but I looked up this tutorial online and followed it until I got the hang of it again on my own.

It really isn't hard, don't be intimidated, just make sure, after the initial loops, that you pull the strings tight.

Also, don't forget to plan ahead where you want your beads, because you can't go back and place them without undoing what you've already done. I raided my daughter's beads for the colors that I wanted.

It only took about fifteen minutes to finish stringing the dream catcher. I finished the middle by just pulling the twine across, rather than using a middle piece like in the tutorial, or leaving a small hole as I read in other examples. Just make it look however you like!










Once I had the actual dream catcher made, it was onto sprucing it up. I dug out all my fake flowers and cut up the ones I wanted and arranged them on the side. Then I used my hot glue gun to attach them.

My hot glue melted some of the flowers and made them wither, so I had to make sure to only put it on the firmer stems of those ones. I would just test how any of your flowers react before you slather hot glue on them and they are ruined.

Once my flowers were fastened, I dug out my burlap and old ribbon scraps that I keep in my crafting supplies.

After digging through and finding what I liked, I roughed up a bow of burlap to make it slightly frayed, and glued it on the bottom. (I love the cute little bow on the first example, but decided I wanted my bow to hang long like feathers usually do off of dream catchers.) After attaching the burlap, I made a bow out of a sheer pink ribbon, and glued that on top of the burlap.

Then whala! My wreath was all prettied up and finished!

See, easy! And really, it looks much better in person than in these pictures. I really love it. It's so springy and sweet. And now hopefully all the evil will be kept out of our house and we'll only have sweet dreams.

Tappana Times: April

Besides Spring Break in Utah, us Tappanas had a pretty good April. Lydia started her science class.

She decided to give dance class a break and try out an engineering class through the community. Science is her favorite subject at school and she was excited at the possibility of learning more. Every class she came home thrilled with her bridges, triangles, light bulb conducting play-dough, and rocket launcher.

I did some crafting of my own and made an adorable dream-catcher wreath for my door. A post on the making of this is in the works.

And it's much cuter in person.














With spring on the rise, so were the dandelions in our yard. I put HOURS and days of work into pulling them out. You have to get them before they go to seed and spread their filth even further.

We have a giant backyard and a decent-sized front yard. I worked each day until that garbage can and each of those buckets were filled at least once. Usually, more than that. A week later our yard was dandelion free.

Along with my back and legs, my kids were constant complainers. Wanting to teach them the value of work and working together as a family, I made them come out with me. At first they helped pull weeds but when I noticed they couldn't get the roots, I had them take over on baby duty. Kendrick's face accurately depicts how we all felt when I announced we were headed out again. Keeping the baby happy while I worked was a job all on it's own. The baby hated it, the kids hated it, and I just wanted to weed and listen to my audiobook in peace.

By time the yard was cleared, I never wanted to see a dandelion again. I'm sure they will make their appearance again, but the overwhelming numbers are currently overcome.

In April Kendrick moved to his own room and I began to miss listening to his sweet baby snores at night.

I had hoped that it would solve his waking up early, but his 6 am wake up call has remained consistent.

Lydia had her first grade Pajama party performance. Good luck finding her in the sea of first graders.

Lydia had a speaking part, but unfortunately her shyness kicked in and I couldn't understand a word she said as she mumbled through it.

She was also included in a special dance number in which she danced with a stuffed animal. There was some drama and lots of tears about her friends calling her pink monkey creepy, but it was all forgotten as she did a great job dancing with her monkey.

Lydia and Ammon wanted to play outside and since Brigham had just mowed the lawn, I told them they could if they wore clothes that they didn't care getting grass stains on. They ended up matching exactly.

Then when I told them to pose for a picture together, this is what they did. I just love how much they love each other.

Now if only they would play in our giant, beautiful, fenced-in backyard. No matter how much I push they don't want to play out back; they prefer to play out front, where the busy road is and where creepos can watch them and I have to check on them constantly. Drives me crazy.

Speaking of going crazy, at the end of April we all came down with a nasty cold. After being cooped in the house for days, and with beautiful weather, I couldn't take it and we went to the park to get some fresh air.  It was such a gorgeous day and Mount Ranier looked so pretty.

We're lucky to live somewhere so beautiful. And it helped rejuvenate our spirits. Spring colds be darned.