I was fortunate to find a box full of small, 6" diameter, grapevine wreaths at the Good as New Shop at my church.  OK- I confess.  I did not find them- a friend of mine from church saw them, and contacted me to ask if I had any interest in taking them.  "Of course!!" I replied!!  What crafter would not want a stash of grapevine wreaths?!?  (LOL)  The right side of my brain got cooking, and I came up with this simple design to celebrate Fall colors.

• Hold the wreath in your left hand (assuming you are right-handed).  Pretend the wreath is a clock, and put one end of the ribbon over the top of the wreath at about 11 0'clock.  Hold it in place with your left finger.
• Feed the rest of the ribbon through the hole in the wreath, so it falls straight down through the center of the wreath (see below).

• At 7 o'clock, wrap the ribbon around the wreath, bringing it up from the bottom, and feeding it back into the center.
• Bring the free end of the ribbon to 5 o'clock, and repeat the wrap around the wreath, coming around the outside, and back into the center.
• Pull the free end of the ribbon up to 1 o'clock, and wrap again.  It should look roughly like you have drawn a square with the ribbon.  (See photo below).

• Repeat the process, wrapping at 9 o'clock, 6 o'clock, 3 o'clock, and 12 o'clock. 

Of course, any wrapping method will work.  And, of course, it does not have to be perfect!  If you are using double sided ribbon, you do not even need to worry about twisting the ribbon as you go.  I found this particular approach I described revealed a lot of ribbon in the center, and I liked the look.  So I went with it!!

Start with you acorns, so they can be drying while you are working on your leaves.  To make your acorns, color the cap with Chocolate Chip, and the body with Creamy Caramel. You can add a small amount of Chocolate Chip to one bottom curve of the acorn to give it a more 3-D look.  Stamp the acorn six times on Creamy Caramel cardstock, and cut them out.  Put them on a scrap piece of cardboard or cardstock, and "paint" the body of the acorn (only!) with Crystal Effects.  Set them aside on a level surface until the Crystal Effects has completely dried to a hard, shiny glaze.

While the acorns are drying, you can start with the leaves.  Take the maple leaf from the Autumn Fest set, and color the rubber with a combination of colors.  I used either two or three colors per leaf, and tried to vary them so every single leaf did not look exactly the same.   For example, try Old Olive, Ruby Red, and More Mustard on one.  Then, make a second leaf mostly Ruby Red, with a little bit of More Mustard and Chocolate Chip on the edges of the leaves.  Don't worry about overlapping your colors- even though the marker might pick up a little bit of a different color from the rubber, all you have to do is make a couple of gentle swipes with the marker on some scrap paper to clean it. 

Now here's the fun, and experimental, part:  hold the stamp, rubber side up, already colored, in your left hand.  Then hold the spray bottle filled with water anywhere from 6 to 12 inches away from the rubber.  Give one gentle spray of water, and then stamp your image.  You will see the colors blend a little on the rubber, but it won't look like much until you stamp it on the paper.  What I found was that spraying at only 6" caused the colors to blend a lot more, and even filled in the veins on the leaves so they were no longer visible (see the leaf on the left in the photo below).  If I sprayed further away, I still got the colors to blend, but it was a much crisper image (image on the right, below).  There is no right or wrong- just play around with the technique until you get an image that you like, and go with that.  Practice may not make perfect, but it gives you a chance to decide what you like!

Use a pencil to give some shape to the leaves.  Hold the pencil in your right hand, in your fist, and the leaf in your left.  Put the pencil underneath the leaf, as far back on the leaf as you can, and then place your right thumb on top of the leaf.  Gently pull leaf between your thumb and the pencil, giving a little twist to the pencil as you go.  You should see the leaf curve a bit.  Again, play around with the amount of pressure you apply, and the speed at which you pull.  Don't be afraid to curl the same leaf multiple times until you get what you like.  You only want the leaves curled enough to fit over the wreath- not wrapped up tight! 

Lay your wreath on a flat working surface, and place the leaves where you want them- no gluing yet!  I placed mine in a very symmetrical pattern, but you certainly don't have to.  I used an Old Olive and Pumpkin Pie maple leaf, bottoms facing each other, about 1" apart, then an aspen leaf, then another pair of maple leaves, etc.  Give them all a slightly different turn so they face in different directions.  When you like your layout, go ahead and glue them down. 

Now take two acorns and place them on top of the maple leaf pairs.  Mine have the caps facing towards the center of the wreath.  Place a small natural element at the top of the acorns, between the caps, and on each of the aspen leaves. 

• Rubber stamp(s) valued at $10
• A $10 Gift Certificate for Stampin' Up! products
• Four hand-made cards, ready to send to your friends.

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