February Craft Night: Chevron and Burlap Valentines Wreath

So these get togethers are going to start becoming a monthly thing and I'm so excited. I mean, I can craft in my own home but doing it in the company of friends with a few glasses of wine and a few slices of artisan cheese is SO much better, right?

See our previous month's craft night here.

The key to any good craft night is....

A. Good Food! My friend Ally brought this gooey brie encased in a flaky pastry crust and I brought a scrumtious tomato pie which I didn't get a good picture of. I bought it at a restaurant but here's a good copy cat recipe that looks pretty similar to the one I bought. You might think 'tomato pie'? Sounds weird but it's this savory, cheesy, buttery, flaky pie that everyone who tried asked for seconds.

B. Good drinks. We had about 7 bottles of wine to choose from and a very interesting purply vodka mix drink called VinIQ which swirled and shimmered.

C. Come PREPARED! Here sits 2 football field worth of burlap. To save on costs for everyone I cut and serged the plain burlap myself. All together 25 yards of the natural burlap only cost $4.40 for each person. The 5 yards of chevron burlap I bought from Hobby Lobby cost more.

250 yards of homemade burlap ribbon may sound daunting but in case you're ever in my shoes here's how I did it in just a few short hours. First I bought the entire uncut piece of a 60" wide burlap roll. I think it was 10 yards total. I had to buy an additional 5 yards on top of that to have enough for everyone. Each person had a 24" wreath frame and used 25 yards of natural burlap and 5 yards of chevron burlap, for a total of 30 yards per person. If you cut 4" strips one yard of 60" burlap equals 15 yards of burlap ribbon. I rolled all my burlap into one long 60" long roll then cut it STILL ROLLED with my table saw downstairs into 4" pieces. Then I took those rolls and serged the sides. Each roll took about 7 minutes to serge each side. You'll have 15 rolls so if you stay focused you can finish serging in just under 2 hours.

If you'd like to see how we made these burlap wreaths here's an easy video tutorial I used. To make ours we followed the steps in this tutorial but also added the chevron burlap intertwined with the natural burlap. I alternated the chevron burlap every other line and only one chevron loop mixed with two natural burlap loops. But you can do it however you like.

My friend Beth from Home Stories A to Z also attended. She made an adorable 16" white felt wreath and posted a tutorial here.

We got the idea for these wreaths from Decorating the Ville's chevron burlap wreath and Tally Tales mixed chevron wreath. And just in case you decide you want to make the little bunting like we did be sure to glue it starting at E and ending at L;-P Doiy!

But hey. At least I can't say I was the only one;-)

If you want to try your own craft night. I recommend starting a Pinterest page and inviting your friends who you plan to invite to join the page. There you can share ideas and brainstorm for projects.

Also, I highly recommend pricing out your materials before you commit to a project. I didn't think about that with this craft night and it ended up being way more expensive than I wanted it to be and that was doing most of the supply creation myself. I would recommend keeping your craft nights between $5 and $15 depending on how much your group wants to spend.

I went out and bought the materials then had everyone pay me at the party. This is best because then everyone has the same materials and things aren't confusing. Plus you can often find good deals when you buy things in bulk.

However, you don't want to spend over a hundred on materials only to have half of your RSVPs arrive. SO! Either collect your money beforehand which I recommend because it will also encourage people not to back out or collect it at the party. Of course there will always be people who can't make it at the last minute for various reasons (my sisters husband broke his leg minutes before she was supposed to leave and she had to rush him to the ER). Just be sure that you make it clear that they still need to pay you for the materials and of course set their materials aside so you can give it to them later. I recommend the former but I know sometimes it's hard to collect money from people you don't see on a regular basis. If you really don't like asking people for money then just remember to save your receipts and return any unwanted supplies.

Make sure you have enough space for everyone. If you have ten girls coming then make sure you have ten seats even if you have to bring in an extra folding table. And make sure there are enough supplies like scissors and glue guns for everyone. I made the mistake of buying 200 pipe cleaners when we only needed about 20 and bringing 0 scissors when we needed about 10;-P

Also, keep your time down to about an hour for the entire crafting portion. If it's anything like our craft nights there's going to be a lot of gabbing and laughing and eating and drinking which takes up more time than the craft which is really how it should be;-)