Toy Wreath

I’ve promised to make a toy wreath for Rick (Marc’s partner) for ages ………

……… but I’ll be honest, I was a little nervous, despite making quite a few jewellery mirrors and wreaths in my time, I knew that this would be a different kettle of fish, toys don’t usually have flat backs, sizes vary and filling the gaps between them might be difficult …….. but I have finally bitten the bullet!

As I didn’t have a large enough solid, wooden frame amongst my stash,  I decided to cover a 12in diameter, metal, wreath frame from Hobbycraft wrapping cotton binding round it, to give something on which to glue an assortment of toys. 

I secured the binding with a glue gun at intervals of about an inch or two, all the way round the frame.

I was nervous about my choice of glue, going for a glue gun in the end, despite having mixed results when sticking plastic on plastic, so I hoped that the first layer of toys would adhere more securely to the binding, before also using E6000 as good measure, to glue toy on toy as I added layers.

The toys came from various 10p baskets and oddment bags from local charity shops. I started by gluing down the four biggest toys to give a very rough symmetry to the wreath ………

…… however, as gaps began to fill, I found that a large area of these toys disappeared under all the layers, but I think it still worked and the glue seems to be holding up, but I did use a lot!

When the wreath was more or less filled, I left it to settle and then had another go, filling even smaller gaps with increasingly smaller toys.

Once happy and reasonably stable, I was able to turn the whole thing over and sew a thread through the binding on the back to hang the wreath by.

I “think” I am happy with the finished item, however, I’m keeping it out, so that I can keep an eye on the glue and will continue to carefully fill in spaces with the glue gun and E6000 until I am ready to hand it over …….

….. though I think it will always be on the fragile side. Would I make another?  Let’s just say, not in a hurry!  Now to remove all those annoying threads of glue, I swear they breed!