Maria Nasir
Homemade Peacock Feathers Wreath
I’m not huge on DIY. But from time to time I dabble my toes in it as a break from my foodaholic life. It’s mostly my mom who is the queen of DIY in our family. She can conjure up anything from scrapes – lamp shades, sofa covers, purses or even bedspreads. So I have no claims to teaching you anything miraculous. I’m just learning and and sharing with you, along the way, in hope that you some of these ideas might bring you as much joy in solitude as they bring me.
For the most part, I’ve stayed busy studying, drifting between teaching jobs, raising kids and learning to cook different cuisines. Now that the girls are all grown up and I’ve touched my 50 years milestone, I’ve more time to do things I love to do for myself. I love to surround myself with beautiful, meaningful and joyous things – objects that I can relate to in some way. Some day you’ll find me making a wall mosaic in the garden with pebbles. Another day I could be painting pottery to brighten up a neglected nook in the house. But what I love most is to revive old, broken and forgotten things by creating new pieces out of them.
This peacock feathers wreath is a result of one such endeavor. We found a bouquet of peacock feathers while cleaning the storeroom pre-fall. Now I’m not particularly fond of decorating with peacock feathers on their own (that’s why they probably ended in a carton in the first place). But I’m a hoarder and can’t let go of things easily either lest they come in handy some day. Thus this sudden reappearance of the feathers became the start of a new DIY project.
Materials Used & Time Spent On Making Peacock Feathers Wreath
Honestly, I didn’t spend a penny on buying anything new to make this wreath. Peacock feathers came out of an old carton. I used my 12 inch, wooden, embroidery hoop as the base to build the wreath upon. Smart, right! The rest came together gradually. I didn’t want it to be just a feathers wreath – incase it ended up looking like a boho project gone voodoo. So other things I used to enrich it were – yellow and brown acrylic paints, two rather tired looking pine cones, some dried and fresh twigs from the garden, a used ribbon and a rusted wind chime.
No idea looks very promising in the early stages, believe me! You have to trust your instinct and give it some love. At the start the wreath looked shabby. Then I painted and revived the pinecones and added them to the wreath. It started looking hopeful. The twigs gave it volume and decent substance. Finally, it was the ribbon and wind chime that made it smile. And made me smile. Using the flower wire made it super easy to tie everything around the embroidery hoop. From start till I hung it up on our front door, It took me 35-40 minutes.
Steps to Making Peacock Feather Wreath
I do most of my art projects on my kitchen island. So I cover it up with an old sheet or newspapers to keep it from getting stained or damaged. Then I assemble my tools. In this case, paints, a small paint brush, clippers, floral wire, dried twigs, pine cones, embroidery hoop and peacock feathers.
First you should cut several 3-4 inch pieces of floral wire as you’ll need one hand to keep feathers and twigs secured over the hoop. I began with a feather over a twig , placed them over the hoop and wrapped a piece of wire tightly around them to give me a secure starting point. You can twist the ends of wire and fold them behind the wreath to make them invisible.
I kept going like this with feathers over twigs, secured with wire pieces till half the hoop was covered. Then I painted the edges on pinecone scales and let them dry for a few minutes. Meanwhile I ironed the wrinkled up ribbon and tied a bow with it. Now I secured the pine cones with more wire pieces over the feather stems, hiding them under the scales as I wrapped the wire. Then I trimmed off stems that were still visible.
One third of the space was left empty on the hoop which I covered with more dried twigs. I kept adding fresh and dried twigs till I got the desired thickness of the wreath. I’m trying to explain it as easily as possible in words but really it was a lot easier in actually doing.
At the end I tied the windchime and the ribbon bow at the top center, again with a piece of wire. You can use whatever materials available at home instead of using strictly what I’ve used. Tiny bells, leftover fancy ribbons and laces, Christmas tree decorations, dried fruits, nuts, dried or faux flowers and whatever you can find in the garden can all make beautiful wreath when put together creatively.