Wooden Dowel Heart Wreath Tutorial

DIY, Tutorial

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I’ve been wanting to make a dowel wreath for like, YEARS. In fact, I bought dowels ages ago, in anticipation of this project, and then my children found them and used them as weapons until they broke most of them over each other’s heads. But this year I’d had enough! It was time to finally make that wreath…

I knew I wanted to paint some or all of the dowels and so I went with different shades of pink, and a heart shape for my second favorite holiday of all…Valentine’s Day! It’s almost here and I can’t wait. Woo-hoo!!

Here’s what you’ll need to make this super easy craft…

Supplies:

  • 7-12 dowels of varying thicknesses (mine were between 1/2″ and 1 3/8″ thick)
  • saw (I used a miter saw and if you don’t know much about them Click to see more)
  • Sandpaper
  • craft paint in 4 shades of pink (or red!)
  • Gorilla Wood Glue

I didn’t take pictures of the cutting and painting of the dowels because it’s pretty straightforward. I chopped mine into 3.5″ long pieces although I could’ve gone shorter. Then I briefly sanded one end of each piece so that the paint would go on smoothly. After wiping off sawdust, I used a foam craft brush to paint the end of each dowel piece.

I divided the dowels up into groups and tried to paint an even number of dowels in each color. That made it easier to distribute the colors evenly. It’d even be cute to leave some a natural wood color!

 

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Next, you’ll need to make a heart template about the size you’d like for your finished wreath. I happened to have this candy bowl on hand and so I just traced it. My template ended up about 10.5″ across and 10″ tall. Then I cut it out of the cardstock I traced it on, leaving a few inches to the inside and outside of the heart shape.

 

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Then I began laying all my dowels out around the heart template, beginning with the thickest and filling in with the skinnier ones.

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(Ignore the E6000 in this picture. I started using it and ended up hating it! Gorilla Wood Glue was much better)

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Try to space the colors out so that there’s good variety but don’t make yourself crazy over it.

Next, start gluing dowel pieces together! I began at the bottom and worked my way evenly around each side. I liked to alternate sides so that one side could dry a bit before messing with it again. As it was, I took a couple days to do it all so that it would cure really well.

Just run a strip of glue down the side of one dowel piece and glue it onto the next. I made sure to connect each piece to at least 2 others so it would be really strong.

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The only semi tricky part for me was the top point of the heart. It took a little rearranging to make sure that both side of the arch looked even and the top point was centered over the bottom point.

My wreath also ended up a tad bit smaller than I originally planned because the dowels had to be really jammed in there to get glued securely. I only used about 7 dowels this time but I’ll use at least 3 more next time.

I hammered a couple nails into the back and hung it on my door with ribbon…but because it was so heavy, it hung skewed. Instead, I hung it on 2 nails in the wall in my entryway, just inside the two arches of the heart itself. Super easy!

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One more week until the big day…Happy Valentine’s Day/ Date planning!!

 

 

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6 Comments

  • Reply
    Danielle from Storypiece
    February 8, 2016 at 10:01 pm

    This wreath turned out so cute! I’m definitely going to have to try this.

    • Reply
      Bonnie
      February 9, 2016 at 11:26 pm

      Thanks Danielle! So, so easy!

  • Reply
    Marie
    February 5, 2020 at 10:47 am

    Love your pretty and unique Valentine’s Day wreath idea! Pinned

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