Mishmash Necktie Wreath

I love wreaths.

Recently, on this blog I saw a necktie wreath from Good Housekeeping Magazine and thought it would be fun to make one in honor of Father's Day.

So I started collecting ties. 

Because I was only using a 12" wreath form, I only needed 14 ties.  Luckily, my husband has spent most of his adult life wearing a tie to work, so he had a few to donate to my project...the rest I picked up at the thrift store.

I decided that it would be stronger if I inserted some heavy paper in the ends, so I cut out 14 tie-shaped ends and placed them inside the ties {I did end up trimming some of the papers down to fit the different widths of ties...}

Next I measured how long the ties needed to be to go around the wreath and be secure.  Then I cut{!} the ties off {around 14" for my wreath}.

I decided to stagger mine with the darker ties on the bottom and the lighter ties on the top.  I set them out so they would be spaced right and so the patterns would look okay together.

Then it was time to start gluing!

I placed the big end of the tie backside up inside the wreath and wrapped the small side around to the inside and glued that end to the wreath form.  Then I wrapped the big end around glued it to the small end of the tie.

 

After gluing all of the darker ties down, I put the lighter ties on top in the same way.

Glue. Wrap. Glue. Press.

Repeat.

This is what I ended up with.

Some of the other necktie wreaths I saw online had bows attached.

I think I will leave mine bow-less for now.

Like this one I found here,

and here.

I did, however, see a different kind of necktie wreath with a necktie flower that may or may not be a cute addition.  Maybe I'll have to try that.

Something like this:

What's your vote?  Flowers or no?