Pile o' Craft: My Name is not Martha Stewart, however....

I think I could be a useful part of her team ;). I was rather over zealous when I took a liking to her satin ribbon poinsetta wreath (found here).

Oh my, oh my, oh my! The whole wire thing, bad idea. WHAT were Martha's minions thinking on this one? Maybe I am bad about following directions. Maybe.

SO, if you would like to make one of these pretties....a few minor adjusments.

Don't even try to wire these puppies together. It's a nightmare. Sure, you can try if you'd like, but by the time you've 'mastered' the wire trick, you're a basket case.

Instead, cut your 4 (not 3 like Martha says) diamonds of ribbon (oh, and something I didn't do, but will need to, take a lighter and LIGHTLY melt the cut egdes of the ribbon, to avoid major fray out):

Now, Martha's mob will tell you to fold them long ways and stagger them, pinning and then wiring all together in the end. Ha ha ha. Let me know when you get the hang of that. The century ought to be about half over by then. Instead, invest in a needle and matching thread, or don't match, it won't show.

Still fold longways, I found a threefold to be easiest and then pinch together in half, like so:

Sew the pinch together, be certain to get all layers passed through twice and knot off. Repeat 3 more times with your remaining diamonds. Now for some good ole craft cheating, well more of it anyway, go out and buy some 2 inch corsage pins....yep, we are not gluing down a 100+ little stamen beads. It's the best $3 box you'll EVER buy....EVER.

In fact, I bought two, to be sure I had enough pins, since I tried Martha's minions "idea"about a third a way around the wreath. 7 hours of that kind of torture will tell you, "You know, $85 for one of these babies, not a half bad deal, really. Wonder how Hobby Lobby will feel about me throwing my half baked wreath at the return desk, with all my opened spools of ribbon? Surely, they'd work me some kind of deal, right?" Ugh.....I was stuck with my crazy idea of poinsetta wreaths hung beautifully from white satin ribbon on either side of the Christmas tree, in the windows.

Thankfully, with my new technique and corsage pins, the rest of this project flew by. Pin each little "v" with a corsage pin:

Create tons of beautiful poinsettas in half the time of Martha's menacing little minions:

Not quite as full yet. But soon my pretties, very soon. I kicked the bucket at 1:45 AM. Work was far to close at hand to continue filling in my blank spots.

OOOOOOO AHHHHHHHH:

Oh and here's our very, very first Christmas tree! I got a steal online at Target....a tree on CLEARANCE two WHOLE weeks before Christmas!! I borrowed ornaments from a good friend to fill her out. Even on clearance, there wasn't much room in the budget for ornaments. What very, very sweet and wonderful friends I have! (Thanks P!)