Whizbang Firecracker Wreath Tutorial

I made it another week! Thanks for Voting. Polls ended like this.
Poll: Dollar Store {week 3}

Picnik is being SLOW tonight, so I'm going to do my best to crank out this tutorial with not so edited pics. Better now with so so pics than a year from now, right? So here it is!

Starting with a wreath and garland from dollar tree,


I laid out the 36 coin wrappers and spray painted them with chrome, and saved about 10 of them which were spray painted with black. This was the bottom layer that will be the "writing" of the sounds. If you don't want sounds on them, you can skip this first step.

The black was just valspar flat paint and the silver was...haha..bumper chrome. My husband had it in the garage. You can use chrome colored spray paint...the bumper chrome worked just fine.

Spray paint them. You should probably do one coat on one side, then when it dries, do the other side, but I just did them both sides at once. Some of the paint did stick to the box, but since this was the bottom coat, I didn't worry about it too much.


I cut each coin wrapper right in the center, and cut about 270 degrees around the circle, leaving only a small space of connection. It is important that you cut on the non rolled side, see the next pic, of when you cut on the rolled side.


It comes apart. No bueno.


Then you fold it back


And apply the word


Using my Silhouette cutter, I cut onomotopea sounds from black vinyl in a size 30 point font with the following styles--pow-snap itc, pop, bang, zip-bauhaus 93, Zoom-Bernard MT condensed; snap-copperplate gothic bold, crack-gill sans ultra bold condensed, kaboom-impact. If you don't have a silhouette, you can use scrapbook letters or skip this step. You could possibly use vinyl through a cricut. But you will keep having to change cartridges and it will take forever, so you will have big time Silhouette envy :) Then you separate the negative space from positive space.



Using the Silhouette transfer sheet, I peeled each word from the backing,

And stuck it on the side of the firecracker.





Now do this a whole bunch of times. I had planned on doing sounds on every wrapper, but realized real fast that only about half of them would have words. I hadn't planned on using the negative space for some of them, but thought "Why not?" I love the dimension that it added.





Back to the cardboard.


I separated these out and painted the chrome ones red and blue. The black ones were painted chrome. Don't have a pic of the paint but it was valspar flat spray paint. You can use whatever you choose. I REALLY should have turned these as they dried, but I am impatient and did it all at once. Some didn't look so good.

And when those dried, I put a coat of this glitter spray on it. I thought it would give it a more refined touch. I got this glitter spray at Michael's.

Then I let that dry.

Then I peeled the vinyl off.

How cool does that look? I went into this project very blindly. I was getting excited here that my efforts weren't thwarted.

Then you do that a whole bunch more times.

Then you get a wreath from the dollar tree.

Spray that with bumper chrome (lol) and let that dry.

Then you cut little one inch pieces off of the garland. It will still stay intact..yay! Excuse these pics. It is naptime with my tripod :)

Then you put hot glue in one side (don't burn your fingers although I did)

And put one side of the garland piece through the wrapper to the glue

Then hot glue the other side

Then open the middle and pull the garland through.

Then trim it with scissors to the length you desire.

Then do it 35 more times and you have your firecrackers.

Say a prayer of Thanksgiving that your dollar tree project wasn't a total failure and take pics of your fun firecrackers.


Then get your chrome wreath, and position the firecrackers the way you want them, and hot glue them on.


From this to this, not bad, huh?


And you will have plenty left over to make these necklaces for the kids. They will LOVE them. I just crocheted the necklaces with chain 40 of red and blue yarn with an I hook, and attached the firecrackers through with a needle and yarn, but you can use any kind of necklace you choose.

I will post more pics later of the kids in these festive necklaces. So much fun! Let me know if you think you will make this. Thanks.