Chinese New Year decorations

Chinese New Year this year starts on Monday, Feb. 8th.  It will be the year of the monkey.  Since the Christmas wreath came down but it's too early to put up the Spring one, our front door was looking a little bleak.  I decided to put together a quick little CNY wreath with a tutorial to boot.  Lucky you! We've got this up, along with our CNY bunting, so we're feeling festive.  Interested?  Read on!

Supplies:
wreath form (either one of those green foam ones or a straw one)
red ribbon (act fast, and maybe you can snag a Christmas one from JoAnn's on clearance-woot!)
small-headed pins
lai see/hong bao (red envelopes from the Chinese market)
thinner red ribbon
paper punch

The pictures pretty much speak for themselves, but basically you're going to wrap the ribbon all around the wreath form, pinning to secure every few wraps.

Once the entire wreath is wrapped, then punch holes in the red envelope and thread the thinner red ribbon through the holes.  Pin that to the wreath.

Finally, take the left over ribbon and make a loop and sew the top forward and back a few times to create a hanger.

Ta-Da!  Your cheery Chinese New Year wreath is ready to hang up!

To keep the festivities going, when the girls were off from school last week, we decided to get our craft on by making some kumquat thumbprint art (inspiration from here).

 A fun little activity!  Happy Year of the Monkey!