Home decorating has never really been my “thing”.

As much as I wish it were.

But, the fact of the matter is that I’ve lived in 17 different locations in the past 14 years. And there is something very unappealing about packing even more things.

Especially when paired with packing my kitchen.

So, home decor isn’t really something I’ve invested in. It’s always something I’ve wanted to invest in – I just haven’t. But now that I’ve purchased a house, with plenty of storage space, I’m all about investing! Starting with some good ole summer decor.

I tend to think that summertime is when it’s completely acceptable – encouraged, even – to show off your American pride. With holidays such as Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, all I want to do is deck the halls with some red, white, and blue! Starting with my front door. It’s the first thing everyone sees when they enter my home and it’s the only thing most people see as they drive by.

With our recent move, however, I wasn’t planning on completing any DIYs this soon. Unfortunately, when I saw this wreath and fell in love with it, but caught a glimpse of the price tag, I knew that doing it myself was probably my only option. So, I set out on a search for the materials and began to put it together. It was a lot easier than what I was expecting, and I absolutely love the way it turned out. I also remembered to take photos of each step along the way so I can share the process. And I’m so glad that I did, because I shared the finish product on my Facebook page, and my friends and family loved it!

Things you will need:

• 18 inch grapevine wreath
• American flag – I used a 2.5’x4′ size
• iron/ironing board
• floral wire
• hot glue gun
• E6000
• eucalyptus leaves
• white daisies
• burlap ribbon

The first thing you want to do is iron out the flag so that you remove all of the creases and as much of the wrinkles as possible. Set your iron onto the synthetic material setting and begin pressing the flag. If you don’t see any difference, you may need to add a bit of steam.

Fold the flag in half, and make a crease down the center by pressing with your hand.

Then unfold the flag and fold both the top and the bottom of the flag until the ends are touching that center crease you just made. Hot glue the end of the flag where the pole would typically go (the area that I am holding in the photo above).

Set your grapevine wreath on top of the flag. Make sure the flag’s correct side is facing down on your work surface and hot glue the flag (where the pole would be inserted) around your wreath. For a better hold, you may want to add some E6000, but don’t go crazy, as the adhesive will leave grease-like marks on the nylon.

Turn the wreath, with the flag attached, over. Make sure the glued down end of the flag is on the left side of the wreath, then gather the remaining flag material and attach it to the upper right side of the wreath with some floral wire. It might take a little bit of adjusting until you find the perfect spot for a nice swag. So, when you find it, secure it!

Make a bow using the burlap ribbon and then attach it to the wreath where you attached your flag with some E6000 and your hot glue gun. When I had first purchased the burlap ribbon, I had purchased the non-wired variety. I found out the hard way that you can’t make an oversized bow like this without wire in it. But, I ended up using the original burlap ribbon to hang this wreath – which is also an option for those that may not want to put holes in their door or use a wreath hanger.

The original inspiration wreath had more than just burlap in the bow. That’s also another option – add more red, white, and blue with a fun patriotic ribbon or yellow, to represent military personnel in combat, tied in with the burlap. Or, just use different colored ribbons in general. I personally liked the idea of just burlap, so that’s what I went with, but you can definitely play around with this.

Once my bow was dry, I disassembled all of the faux flowers and greenery so that I had a pile of individual stems. I, then, took the individual stems and started placing them around the area my ribbon and flag were attached until I was happy with the placement. To attach the greenery and flowers to the wreath, I laid the stems flat on the grapevine wreath and pooled a bunch of hot glue over top of them. The stems are covered by the flag and the ribbon, so I didn’t mind having a pool of unattractive glue sitting on the wreath. I just wanted to make sure this was going to last!

To finish it off, I attached a 36 inch ribbon to the back of the wreath using both hot glue and E6000 – the hot glue so that it would immediately have a hold, but the E6000 to ensure it will hold up over time!

Now all I have to do is think of how to decorate the rest of the house for summer. How do you decorate for the season?