a pinterest scavenger hunt

alternately titled: duct tape really is useful for everything

It is still hitting about 90 degrees here each day and it doesn't feel so much like the Christmas I am use to. We also won't be in our home for the actual Christmas week, but I still really wanted to have some sort of Christmas decorations in our apartment. The problem is, I can't really just go buy decorations here. After browsing pinterest and trying to find some things I thought I could do, I settled on trying to create something like this...

source

Chad and I headed down to the big market area (Rajwada) to see what we could find. I was not even sure if it would be possible to create.

 After asking around a little bit, we were pointed to several little yarn shops. score!

 The people at the yarn shop were very helpful and even helped us brainstorm what I could use as a base for the wreath. They had an idea and told us to follow them and so we jumped on the scooter and followed them through tons of the narrow market roads. Thank goodness they took us, we would have never found it on our own! 

They suggested using some sort of tube/pipe and so we headed to the Lowes-type market. We looked at several different kinds, but settled on one that was smaller around because it would bend into a circle. The wider pipes wouldn't bend in to a small circle. The guy thought we were crazy that we only wanted 1.5 feet of it, but sold it to us for 20 rupees... about 40 cents.

 Then we headed to the cloth market. There are soooo many little shops with walls full of fabric.

Amy and I had previously found this little shop that has a lot of solid colored, cotton fabrics. So we headed straight to that one. They are so nice to us!

 Even off of the main road, there are all of these little alleyways with lots more fabric shops. 

 This is what I ended up with from the day (and getting this took several hours... everything takes longer here!).

 I duct taped the pipe together and then tried to fatten it up using old fabric. Then I wrapped it in yarn. I wanted to use a neutral yarn so that I could possibly use it after Christmas too. 

Chad helped me detangle all of the yarn. He said he enjoyed it because it reminded him of fishing and detangling a fishing line :)

 I was trying to find a way to add some embellishment to the wreath. I don't have a hot glue gun here or fabric glue (maybe elmers would have worked? but I figured it would make a mess on the fabric). I still had the duct tape beside of me and decided to try to make some rosettes using that and it worked!

 The end product is very imperfect but it was so fun to create! I used the fabric to make a bow. I've never found ribbon, but maybe it is somewhere in the market? Maybe one day I'll learn all the different market bizarre areas. 

Now we have a little Christmas decor... only 40 more days!