Peaces of Love

The other day I mentioned I would be working on getting The Girl's room decorated. It's all about peace, and love, and a bohemian lifestyle. And a while back, I'd seen this on Pintrest:

Source: http://lisaloria.blogspot.com/2011/05/peace-ful-project.html

and IMMEDIATELY thought of The Girl...and this was before the plans for her room. I traced it back to a great little blog, Lisa Loria :)

The problem was, The Girl didn't love it. Whaaaaaaat?? EVERY. SINGLE. THING. about this says The Girl. Peace sign. "Christmas" lights. Flowers. WHAT is not to like?! Hell, I kinda want it in MY room. She shrugged.

Fast forward to her telling me how she wanted her room decorated. I couldn't get this peace sign outta my mind. Remember when she and I went to the dollar store for the supplies for her mobile? Well, I seized the moment. I pressed the issue, even! (I REALLY wanted to put it in her room and live vicariously through her.) "What if we changed the flowers? Daisies? You love daisies...we can get extra and do both." AND IT WORKED! VICTORY!!! In the end, I came up with this version:

She loves it. Oh, the fickleness of children...

I didn't have the light fixture from Ikea, and while the Ikea was in walking distance when I lived in Philly, it is, sadly, two hours away now. Wait. Is there one in Baltimore?! Remind me to look into that. Moving on...So while I didn't have, and wasn't able to get, the light fixture, I DID have the wire wreath frame I'd be using for the mobile. Surely I could take the thing apart and get more rings, right?? I could, and I did. All in all, it's a pretty easy project, but here's how I made mine...

What you'll need:

Wire wreath frame
Short strand(s) of Christmas lights (I used 2 40-light strands)
Fake flowers
Floral wire (and cutters)
Glue gun
Needle-nose pliers

What to do:

First, if you're trying to use your wreath frame for more than one project, you'll need to take it apart. Do this by lifting the wire "brackets" from the outside ring, all the way around. I used the largest, outside ring for this. Of course, you can skip this step and use the frame as is.

Now you'll take your floral wire and wrap it into a peace sign shape.

The wire will slide around on the frame, so to make life easier, put a little dot of hot glue where the wire meets the frame. Just enough to hold it in place while you're arranging your lights and flowers.

Next, wrap your lights around the entire shape and secure with more floral wire. If you're like me, this could take days, months even. I can never get my lights to go the way I want the first time. Seriously. I actually rage quit. But when I came back with a fresh cup of coffee, I got it on the first try!

Now you're going to add your flowers. This part takes into account the type of flower(s) your working with first, and then your personal preference in regards to those flowers. I imagine there's no "wrong" way". I used these.

Remove them from the stems, but leave the back part (I dunno what it's called, but I bet it has a name) intact. I'll explain why later.

Ignore the whiteboard paint on my nail

I started with the blossoms. Using even more floral wire, I attached the blossoms to the middle of the design and plugged the lights in to make sure they weren't TOO covered.

The larger daisies and (I think?) sunflowers, I was able to just "snap" (they actually made that sound) between the lights and the frame or between the twists in the wire for the lights because I'd left that little thingie on there. There were a few I added some hot glue to, just for added security, but for the most part, they held tight. Alternately, you could trim the little thingie (not too short or your flower will fall apart!) and hot glue them in place. I opted not to so I could move them around while arranging them.

And that's it! All that's left to do is hang it on the wall and plug it in!