Corn Husk Wreath

While reading the November issue of Martha Stewart Living, I came across this beautiful and simple wreath how-to for making a corn husk wreath.  I don’t have any fall themed wreaths, and thought that this was an elegant and somewhat easy craft to make!

The Martha Stewart tutorial can be found here: http://www.marthastewart.com/1035221/corn-husk-wreath.  I know my pictures aren’t as pretty as “Martha’s” are, but I am re-creating her tutorial here with step-by-step pictures as well as a few notes from my own attempt.

Supplies:

A straw wreath (most craft stores)

Corn husks – you can buy these at any Latina Bodega or Mercado.  No need to go gourmet.  This bag was $6 for 1 lb.

T-pins

Scissors

hot glue gun (and glue)

bowl of water

paper towels

newspaper

heavy book  (trust me on this).

 

Step One:  dunk the corn husks (indivitually) in the bowl of water and then blot dry them.

With your slightly damp corn husk, wrap it around the wreath form and secure it with T-pins.  Continue going around the form until the entire form is covered.  Overlap and re-pin as necessary.

Here is the wreath form completely covered.  You could probably use something like a styrofoam form as well.  (And that leads me to think about other crafting projects with all of the leftover corn husks….)

Step Two: Continue to dunk corn husks and drape them over the form so that they are curved slightly.  Pin temporarily in place.

For this step, I did not worry about placing them exactly where I wanted them to be in the final form.  I did make sure however, to put plenty on the wreath so that I would have enough to choose from when doing the final assembling.  I also found that after wetting the corn husk, they curled a bit better if I gently rolled them in the direction I wanted them to go before placing them on the wreath.

Step Three: After pinning everything in place, turn the entire wreath over, place a newspaper over top, and weight down with a heavy book.

I did this because I found the husks weren’t conforming to the wreath as much as I would have liked.  They need to dry for at least a few hours, and I let mine dry over a day like this.

Step Four:  Take out all the temp. T-pins holding the outer husks in place.  Take all the husks (not wrapped around the form) off and start to arrange.  Using the hot glue gun, permanently attach the husks.

 

In this step, use the scissors to cut the husks to the shape you want – if you want some a little pointier for example.  I also cut off bases of some of the husks that were more difficult to work with.

Start with fairly even spacing like so:

And then layer on the husks, alternating to give it a more natural flair.

I went through a lot of glue on this project to get all the pieces down how I wanted them to be.

And after letting the whole thing cool off, it’s ready to go!

Peanut loves the wreath too and wishes she could be outside to see it.  :)

This was a fairly simple project, but all told it took about 2 hours (maybe a little less).  And I did try to find, unsuccessfully, corn husks as a couple of grocery stores before going to a nearby Latina Bodega.  I was a little worried about it in the rain, but so far it’s held up beautifully and we had a good drenching this last week.  The only thing I was thinking about doing differently with this wreath, was to add Nandina berries to it, but I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to do that (and have them continue to look good).

As yesterday was Thanksgiving, I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday!  I am so thankful to be in this house, and to have my parents come and visit us. I truly have a lot to be thankful for.

 

 

I’m linking up to some parties!  Thrifty Decor Chick