The gift of children changes a person forever. Your life is no longer your own, your heart learns to love to the point of bursting, and “servant” becomes your middle name. 🙂
I have two children at the moment. My two boys, Rudy and Mark, are 3 ½ and 1 ½. But in about seven weeks, that number will change to three!! That’s right, just a matter of weeks now until baby number three makes his or her grand entrance.
There is something unique about this baby…something different than Rudy and Mark. That something is that this baby’s gender remains anonymous! For the first time, we have decided to forgo finding out if we are having a boy or a girl.
This makes planning for a potential girl basically nonexistent. And I’m really fine with that. We have a gender-neutral nursery, and I figure we’ll just worry about pink clothes if and when we cross that bridge.
But there is one particular thing that I have been obsessing about. For the first time, I want to make a homemade “Welcome Baby” wreath to hang on the hospital door and on my own front door once we get home. The question is, and I have been wracking my brain for ideas, how can I make a “Welcome Baby” wreath and not know the gender of the baby?
I don’t want an impersonal wreath that doesn’t even say “boy” or “girl” on it…so somehow this wreath needs to incorporate either scenario! It seems impossible, but I thought of just the thing about a month ago.
Years and years ago, deflated balloons were used to make a long list of crafts, some of them being quite ridiculous. I am guilty of participating in the balloon barrette fad…oh my. But one balloon craft that has stood the test of time, and in my opinion can be absolutely adorable, are the colorful balloon wreaths!
It popped into my head several weeks ago that a balloon wreath, possibly assembled in a rainbow fashion, would just trumpet “excitement!!” and “celebration!!” But the question remains…how do I incorporate a specific “It’s a boy” or “It’s a girl” message into it?
This is what I came up with…if there was a way to have a small sign that hung in the center of the wreath, you could paint one side of the sign to say “It’s a Boy” and the other side “It’s a Girl”. The sign (which I decided would be a wooden star) would hang by a hook, and could easily be flipped over according to the gender of the baby. Ok, so enough talk, let me share with you the step-by-step process of making a Rainbow Balloon Wreath for a Baby Girl or Boy!!
What you need:
- Straw wreath- I used a 14 inch.
- Balloons – I used six different colors, 4 packages of each. Make sure you get the large size.
- Floral pins – These are found in the floral department. You will need 2 bags.
- Twine for hanging.
- Wooden star – These are found in the woodcraft and wood signs section of a craft store. I found a very thin one that can easily hang inside the wreath.
- Metal hook – You can either make one out of heavy-duty wire, or buy a screw-in hook.
- Paint/paint-pens
Assembling the wreath: (Do not remove plastic from wreath!)
- Divide your wreath into 6 sections by tying string at intervals all the same size. This will ensure that all of your sections look nice and even.
- Fill in each section with one color of the balloons. To attach the balloons, twist the neck one time and secure with floral pin. Use all four bags of a color on one section. You want it to look very full. Repeat for each section.
- Once every section is filled in, remove or cut the strings that delineated the sections.
Making the star:
- Drill a small hole through the top of the star, using a power drill.
- Paint both sides of the star and then decorate one side for a girl and the other side for a boy.
Finishing touches:
- Insert the hook into the underside of the top of the wreath. Hang your star!
- Use twine to make a long loop to hang the wreath. I used several loops of twine and tied the top of the loop with a bow.
Absolutely adorable! I cannot wait to hang this on my hospital door! Do any of you have any suggestions or ideas on how to improve it? I would love to hear!
