With the holiday season quickly upon us I've begun crafting all of my holiday gifts. This year I want to make a few unique wreaths. Wanting to try something different I decided to make an Advent wreath and a butterfly-themed wreath.

The Advent wreath will be gifted to a good friend before the holidays so that her family can enjoy it during the month of December.

Supplies:

• wreath - unknown
• patterned paper - K&Company
• ribbon - Stampin' Up (Grosgrain), American Crafts (Brown Dot), Offrey (Green Stripe, satin two-tone, red sheer)

This Advent wreath started out as a simple, inexpensive twig wreath from my local arts and crafts store. I found some fantastic patterned paper that was numbered 1 through 25 in a nice holiday-inspired color scheme of red, tan, spruce green and dusty teal. I purchased two sheets of the paper, cut apart all the numbers, matched them up and glued three sides together to create 25 pockets. I then punched a hole in each one and tied each to the wreath.

You can find other examples of this type of paper from Carolee's Creations, Making Memories, or Teresa Collins. Each one has its own style, and would change the feel or theme of your Advent wreath.

You could make this wreath as detailed or as simple as you would like. I'm keeping mine fairly simple; however, you could start by painting your wreath in a bold color like high gloss black or shiny metallic silver and then add other embellishments to create a very dynamic gift.

Once December starts my friend can fill each pocket with a candy cane or sucker. Then her family can enjoy their sweet treats while they count down to the big day! For the photo I've placed lollipops in a few of the pockets - it seems that it's still a little too early to find candy canes in my area!

The butterfly wreath will be a gift for my three-year-old daughter. Her favorite color is blue and we're moving her into her big girl bedroom this winter. I think she'll love this!

Supplies:

• two chipboard butterfly albums - Maya Road
• patterned paper - Die Cuts With a View
• acrylic paint - Adirondack Paint Dabber (silver), Making Memories (shades of blue)
• acrylic gems - Me & My Big Ideas
• metal letters, mini binder clip and brads - Making Memories
• acrylic "Dream" tag - Heidi Grace
• ribbon - unknown
• round and scallop punches - Marvy Uchida

This was a really fun project to do. I created this butterfly wreath from two butterfly-shaped mini books from Maya Road. They were inexpensive, plain chipboard pieces held together with a small piece of chain.

Once I took them apart I was able to paint each one, apply patterned papers, and embellish each one. I adhered them all together using my hot glue gun. As a final step I added a ribbon hanger, her name in metal letters, and a photo.

These small Maya Road albums come in several themes. Try using an acrylic album or one of their other coaster albums to make a one-of-a-kind wreath. The six-and-a-half inch sheer snowflake album would make an adorable snowflake-themed wreath once it was all embellished and adhered together!

Once you start looking at all of the possibilities you'll start to see wreaths everywhere! They are wonderful gifts, and such fun projects to complete with kids or friends. You can add photos if you want, or just use your scrapbooking tools to embellish your wreaths with beautiful holiday papers.

Here are a few more wreath ideas for you:

• paper star wreath - Embellish a store-bought wreath with stars made from your favorite holiday scrapbook papers.
• mini-wreath tree ornaments - Use mini wreaths to make Christmas tree ornaments.
• microscope slide wreath - Create several art pieces from microscope slides and solder them together to create a unique wreath. Try using vintage holiday images or heritage photos.
• glittered message wreath - Use glittered letters to spell out "Noel", "Peace", or even a family's name and then embellish and personalize.
• felt shapes wreath - Use some of the adorable felt flowers, holiday-themed images, or other shapes like birds. Embellish with wire, beads, or paper tags.
• vintage "bling" wreath - Try adding vintage earrings, beading, or buttons to the center of velvet poinsettias and wiring them all together to make an elegant wreath.
• Bag O' Buttons wreath - use a single color of buttons in several sizes, or mix it up and use several colors. Hot glue them to a foam wreath and embellish with a large curl of paper ribbon.