More cowbell! Does anyone else decorate for Christmas and then redecorate for Christmas? I think I have a problem. I find a new DIY and then I have to adjust all my Christmas decor around it. Here's my DIY Wreath with Paper Mache Cowbells tutorial:

If you're a Pinterest nut like me, I'm sure you've seen this amazing olive wreath from Shades of Blue Interiors. When my friend Roxanne from Bonjour Bliss Blog asked me if I wanted to try DIYing it I was super excited.  Here is a side-by-side comparison of my knock-off olive wreath with cowbells and the original (right).

The original wreath was made by curling the olive branches in a circle but in order for me to get the leafy look I was going for I had to group the eucalyptus in little bunches and attach them to a wire hoop.

I found an artificial wreath from the dollar store and simply removed the faux greenery around it to expose a wire hoop.


Then I took my bunches of eucalyptus and attached them to the hoop using wire. I started from the bottom and worked my way up on both sides. I overlapped them a bit to hide the wire.



Now this eucalyptus Christmas wreath looks cute on it's own with a simple velvet bow however I wanted to recreate the original olive wreath with the cowbells. I searched everywhere for cowbells and found a few on Etsy, Overstock and at Walmart but I couldn't get them fast enough so I did what any DIY blogger would do and recreated these cowbells using paper mache. Yep, that's right, that gooey guck from elementary school can really come in handy.

First, I made a small batch of the paste (one part water, one part flour and a squirt of white glue - sorry not very scientific). I cut up a bunch of small strips of paper (I used one of my kids old colouring books shhh), covered a plastic cup with pastic wrap, dipped the paper strips in the glue mixture and slowly layered them onto the cup. I let it dry over night and then spray painted it gold.



Finally I tied the paper mache cowbells together using a hemp rope, added some beads and attached it to the wreath with a delicate white bow. I love the way it turned out.