Beautiful Spring Wreaths

It's official: Spring is on it's way! Yesterday was the warmest day of the year so far where I live in Northwest Oregon. We've been graced with sunny, dry weather and I just can't wait for the danger of frost to pass so I can get my garden going.

Since it's not quite time to get some spring color in the ground, I wanted to feature some of my favorite front door spring door bling from around the blogosphere. Hopefully they will inspire you to make something fabulous and colorful for your own abode!

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Spring Wreath from Under the Sycamore

I love this beautiful wreath wrapped in yarn and moss and sprinkled with beautiful butterflies. Visit her site to get the full tutorial.

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Mossy Spring Wreath from The Magic Onions

Moss is a theme I love for spring decor - especially since I'm surrounded by it as the weather warms up here. Keep moss where it belongs...on your front door (instead of in your yard!). Click the link above to visit the full tutorial.

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A Quick and Colorful Wreath from Kiki Creates

If you're in an upcycling mood, turn some fabric and sewing scraps into cute flowers and leaves to make this bright Spring wreath. Kiki doesn't have a tutorial for her wreath but she's got some great close up shots on the blog so be sure to visit to check it out!

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My Spring Wreath

Last year I made this spring wreath from some dollar store sprigs and a grapevine wreath. I can't wait to take it out of storage and hang it on my door!

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If I featured your project, please feel free to grab a button if you'd like:

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Can't get enough wreaths? I pin my favorite Wreaths year round on my Pinterest Wreaths board. 

If you've got a fabulous wreath you've made, leave a link in the comments. I'd love to pin you, too!

Living Moss Ball Tutorial

It's done. My fun little entryway spring vignette is done:

I had most of it done for about a week but the part I and most proud of?  The moss ball (far right).  You know why? Because it is the real deal - living moss. Not the fake floral aisle stuff.

There is so much awesome mossy goodness floating around the blogosphere right now. I have a whole board on my Pinterest account dedicated to moss. There are a couple great mossy rock crafts listed on Dollar Store Crafts.  My favorite (as far as the fake stuff goes), though is this one from Make the Best of Things.

She basically takes mossy rocks from the dollar store, peels off the moss and glues it to a ball form.  They look really awesome. But I asked myself: Is there a way to make these out of real moss?  Being a Pacific Northwest girl, I'm surrounded by the stuff. That, and this is what the flower basket on my gate looked like at the end of winter:

Filled. With. Moss.

I want to plant flowers in it, but what should I do with the moss? I felt bad just throwing it away. It needed a good home somewhere else.

I actually spent a couple weeks looking into the living moss ball thing. I couldn't find a tutorial online that used live moss and looked anything like what I wanted. The closest I got was finding this, which is a way to hang plants in the air and some moss gets wrapped around the base. But the bases were also pretty heavily wrapped in string. I just wanted a moss ball.  I knew I needed three things: a way to keep the moss moist and fed, moss, and a way to make it stick in a ball form.  This is what I came up with and I am thrilled with how it turned out:

Supplies Needed:

• Wet floral foam (1 sphere or 2 short cylinder shapes)
• Moss (scavenged from your yard or neighborhood)
• "Greening Pins" (I got a pack of 50 from Jo-Anns for $2)

Spring Vignette in Progress

I've been working on the spring display on top of the book shelf by our door for a few days now. It still needs a few finishing touches but I wanted to show off what I have so far:

The two things I'm missing are a living moss ball (it's going to go on top of that tall bowl of white gravel on the right) and grass growing out of the egg shell on the left (it's still sprouting).

Let me break down the different parts for you...

Countdown to Spring: Two Buck Tuesday Redux

Last week, I posted my $2 bathroom touch up project.  This week, I tweaked it a little bit:

Before:

Now:

Really, all I did was add rocks to the bottom of the vases and take out the fake ivy (I tried to love it...but it wasn't happening).  This gives it a little bit more of a clean zen feeling and I'm digging that. Not too shabby for $5.

Countdown to Spring: Two Buck Tuesday

Have I mentioned yet that I'm excited for Spring? Bring on the mossy verdant decor! I spent $2 at Dollar Tree over the weekend and was able help get our downstairs bathroom one step closer to spring:

Now, I only had to spend $2 because I already had a few of these things on hand. If you're going for a similar look from scratch, you might need to spend a tad more. Most of the stuff up there is from the Dollar Tree, though.

Countdown to Spring: More Great (and Thrifty!) Ideas

I love Spring for lots of reasons. I get to start my garden after a long cold winter, I get to swap out the red winter decor for some great green stuff, and Easter, the high Christian holiday.  I found one great craft from each of these categories that I'm totally loving and thought I'd share for my fellow spring lovers.

For the Garden: Plantable Seedling Pots

While I love the idea of plantable seedling pots, I feel like they frequently don't work out because the bottoms  usually decompose slower than the roots grow to the bottom of the pot and need more space.  That's why I love these. You put paper towel tube pieces in a water proof tray and fill with dirt.  There is no bottom so when it's time to plant you don't have to worry about cutting out the bottom or dealing with plants that don't have enough root space. While the twine is pragmatic (keeps the tube from unrolling when it's wet) it makes it look super cute. I found these over at Homework: Today's Assignment, Be Inspired.

For the Green: Split Pea Centerpiece

I love staggered height candle holders. These are easy to make, super cheap (way better than the $10+ for each piece you'd pay even at IKEA prices) and GREEN. Check out the tutorial over at Two Twenty One.

For Easter: Treasure Rocks

Cindy actually made these to be treasure "blarney stones" for St. Patrick's day. Which is cool if you celebrate St. Patty's (we're actually not big St. Patty's day people). Why I think these are AWESOME though, is because you could make them egg shaped and do these for Easter. If someone can't find an egg, you don't need to worry about it starting to smell or attracting animals. They are made with non toxic ingredients (can't say that about plastic eggs). AND smashing your eggs open with a hammer is a ba-zillion times cooler than opening plastic eggs (especially when you have a family full of little boys like we do).  Check out Cindy's brilliant idea and tutorial over at Skip to My Lou. 

Countdown to Spring: Front Door Decor

Only 16 more days until the first day of spring!  I'm so excited to bust out some awesome spring green decor to cheer up my home.  I've been seeing some fab wreaths around the blogosphere lately and wanted to highlight a few of my faves. Each of the wreaths I found come with tutorials, so read the rest to grab the links and whip up some fabulous front door decor yourself!

Stuff I'm Loving this Week

This Genius DIY zebra rug from Vintage Revivals

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I want to make a table runner in the same style as this pebble mat from After I Finish This Row

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The idea behind these DIY floor candle sticks is genius (and a huge money saver) from Impatiently Praying for Patience

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This awesome springy wreath from Never Boring