Go Big Blue!

Just in time for the SEC tournament, a University of Kentucky wreath.

First I bought a pack of white coffee filters and an individual pack of blue fabric dye.  I filled my kitchen sink with water, added the blue dye, and then put in 50 (out of 100) coffee filters.

Once they'd soaked for a while, I took them out and laid them in my garage on newspaper to dry.  I didn't want to lay them directly on the ground for two reasons: (1) I didn't want them to get dirty and (2) I didn't want to turn the garage floor blue.  It didn't take them long to dry, but when I picked them up I realized some of them (not all) had absorbed some of the ink from the newspaper.  Didn't see that coming.

I was now ready to start making my wreath but realized a small problem.  By soaking and drying the coffee filters, I had smoothed out the "ruffly" edges.  Since the plain white ones hadn't been soaked and dried, they were still ruffly.  So, I stopped, filled the sink with warm water, and soaked the plain white ones in plain warm water.  After these had dried, I was ready to go.

I started twisting the filters and hot gluing them onto the wreath, alternating between blue and white.  After I had covered the whole wreath, this is what I had.

Next, I printed the letters U and K in a font I liked in Word, cut them out and traced them onto some white cardboard.  Using the white cardboard letters, I traced that onto white felt.  Then I used blue thread and stitched the white felt onto the white cardboard.  This part sucked.  It's not easy to sew cardboard and my fingers hurt from pushing the needle through and then into my finger.  After much putting it down and picking it up, I finally finished the letters and hot glued them onto the wreath.  This is the final product:

We love it!!!  It is now hanging on my front door for the duration of March madness.  Go big blue!

P.S. Joey and I's alma mater, Morehead State University, won their tournament, the OVC, to get into the NCAA tournament, too.  So we'll be rooting for both of them.