Pennies Primitives: Primitive Burlap Valentines Day wreath

It's been such a cold and snowy winter here, I feel like a bear hibernating for the winter. Just the thought of going outside makes me want hit the couch and snuggle under my favorite blanket to stay warm. Hibernating does have it's strong points. Like for instance my night time hibernating has resulted in a fast growing love affair with Pinterest! I can't believe the fun projects I've been pinning! I'm working on a few of them and I will post them as I finish.

I found this pic and thought Hummm, Valentines day is right around the corner and I have nothing to hang on my door! I always have tons of scrap material laying around and I had a grapevine wreath so I figured I would give it a shot.

While I think this wreath is adorable, I'm all about Primitives so I went looking through my fabric scraps trying to figure out how I could switch it up. I found a stack of burlap bags that have been hanging around forever. I've been seeing all kinds of uses for burlap on Pinterest and I really like the look but a burlap wreath just doesn't scream Valentines day so I decided to paint some of it red and see how it looked.

I used Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in the color Tricycle and mixed in a little bit of walnut stain to darken it up a bit. This paint is in a powdered form so I mixed it thinner than I normally would. That made it spread easier on the burlap.

So I had regular burlap, the painted burlap, now I needed a third color. I chose a ticking fabric but it looked too new next to the burlap so I got out my pot and gave it a tea stain.

After everything was dry I cut out my strips. I didn't measure, I just cut. Burlap really shreds so it's a good idea to cut a little bigger to compensate. On the other hand the painted burlap didn't shred at all.

Then I started knotting. I got into a pattern of 2-3 burlap, 1 painted burlap, 2-3 burlap, 1 ticking and it seemed to look good.

I trimmed the lengths and all the shredding pieces as I went along.

I liked the way it was turning out but it still needed something to Valentine it up so I asked Bill to make me some wooden hearts. I painted, distressed and stained them and hung them on the wreath with rusty wire. I think that was just what it needed!