Hannah GregerThere is no better time of the year! We have successfully made it through Thanksgiving and gearing up to tackle Christmas. So what better way to get excited with a quick DIY! The himmeli is a 19 inch geometric wreath made from the simple material of straws to give such a clean, chic and expensive look to your home. So get ready to dress up your house with this festive geometric wreath.
Materials:
+ A package of cocktail straws (plastic is easier than paper straws)
(For some reason it is impossible to find, so I ordered a larger straw from Amazon.)
+ Your choice of yarn or floral wire.
+ Cutting mat and straight edge
+ Cutting roller
+ Optional: Spray paint
Keep in Mind:
This project is not overly time consuming, once you get your first shape completed, it will be nothing to do it seven more times. Remember straws are not the most sturdy material out there, so be gentle in this process. Also a little tip is while I used yarn to put my wreath together, I did have a small piece of spare wire on hand to help push the yarn through the straw more easily.
How to Make It:
The first step is to cut all of your straws down, whether you can find smaller cocktail straws or go with the larger 8 inch straws that I used. You will need the straws cut to 4 ½ inches so your final wreath diameter will be 19 inches. For the actual cutting of the straws, I used two cutting boards, just to make sure I could apply more even pressure and not lose any of the straws as they are cut.
Once everything is cut, you will need approximately 120 straws. Fun side note, you can use all of the extra 3 ½ inch straws for geometric ornaments for your Christmas tree.
In these directions I will walk you through one full shape, then you get to repeat it seven more times until you have eight shapes.
First take 2 ½ arms lengths of yarn or wire (I needed three for my short arms) and string on the first four straws.
Then tie them off, making sure you either double knot the yarn or one solid twist of the wire.
Be sure to an inch or so for your short end when tying off and the rest so you can continue to add straws to the shape.
Next slide two straws onto the long side of the yarn and tie off on the opposite end, at the space between two straws.
Once this is complete you will need to repeat, two straws at a time, two more times.
There will be a total of five sets of two straws.
Now gently press the star shape so that the short end of the yarn is in the middle and feed the long end that was in the middle back through one straw, so that it is coming out at an elbow on the outside of the shape.
Directly from the elbow, four more straws are needed, to close off four of the five sides of the star.
You will be connecting these four straws at each of the elbows and tying off with a simple knot at the elbows. This will leave one end open, which is the space used to connect to the seven other shapes.
Be sure to keep 5-6 inches of yarn or wire at the end to be able to tie each shape together!
NOW to repeat SEVEN times!
Lastly it is time to connect all eight shapes, it will be the exact same way the four straws were added at the elbows. You will be connecting the last open space to the side of the next shape and tie off at the end, which will end up being the center of your wreath. Make sure all knots are secure and trim the extra yarn or push it/the wire back through the straws to hide the tails.
Once completed, I ran an extra wire through the center circle, through all eight shapes to give it extra stabilization and form.
Optional: Spray paint your wreath whatever color suits you best! Add some fun decorations to it such as succulents, extra scraps of your Christmas tree or even some bright ribbon!
Enjoy!