Saga's Cottage : Beltane Craft Decorative Maypole Wreath

This article is part of Kallan's wonderful Sunday Stew. Please hop on over and read all the different flavors added by each chef. I know that you will love it!

Beltane is a beautifully colorful celebration day with ribbons, flowers, and summer just around the corner. It is one of my favorites. I don't know if you will like the craft that I have thought of, I hope you do. Maypoles are so pretty with their braided ribbons and flowers.

I thought of capturing the maypole as a decoration to put inside the home on a wreath. It was a fairly easy project, but it is a bit messy, so it is best done outside.

You'll need:

Wreath
Mesh ribbon
Dowel rod
Different colored ribbons
Flowers
Hot glue
Hat pin
Moss
Floral foam half ball

When I ran to the store to get my supplies, it was last minute. They were sold out of grapevine wreath, but they had the straw wreath. After I bought the straw wreath, I realized it was better suited for what I wanted to do.

Let me forewarn you, I was winging it while I made the pics. Kind of making it up as I went along on my merry wreath-making way. Soooo, I end up making an adjustment towards the end. You'll see in the pics.

After my wreath, make sure that you check out all the other crafts that I've found. There are some really good ones.

Okay, first take your straw wreath and wrap it with your mesh ribbon.

I folded my me

sh in half before I wrapped the wreath.

I basically attached the foam ball where I wanted it with hot glue.

I took the ends of the ribbons and nailed them to the top end of the dowel. I fold the ends before I attached them. I left the sticking out a bit so that the ribbons could move around and I could position them.

After I attached the ribbons, I just kind of wound them in and out of each other, like it there were people that danced around the maypole with them. This is not easy, and I also could not stop to take pics of the process, sorry.

Here is the wreath with the mesh, the foam ball, the dowel, and the ribbons.

After you attach the pole, now you can "place" the ribbons on your wreath.

Like this. I just twisted and curled them and dabbed a bit of glue to hold in place every so often.

I used the orange ribbon to decorate the pole, and I kind of twisted it around the pole.

Then I decided that I didn't like the pole being so tall and I removed everything and cut an inch off the bottom of the foam base to make it shorter and I cut around 2 1/2 inches off of the dowel. I wanted a shorter pole.

You can see in this pic how much shorter from the top of the wreath it is.

After your dowel is attached, you can glue the moss to the foam ball, and then drape the ribbon on that as well. Underneath the foam ball I attached a mesh ribbon with a hat pin. Then I added flowers here and there. Some smaller flowers were added to the foam ball and then I put some larger flowers at the top of the wreath.