Ornament Month! Button Wreath

 Today's ornament turns this:

 And this:

 Into this!

 When I started this ornament I wasn't sure it was going to work out, so I didn't take many "in process" photos, but I'll try to describe how I put it together as best I can.  I started out by "sewing" together a bunch of large green buttons in a circular shape using dark green wire.  I didn't really have a method for this, just up through one hole in the button, down in the opposite button, and then up through one hole of the next button and down through the opposite and on and on and on.  I twisted on more wire whenever I needed it, and twisted together the two wire ends to connect the circle ends.  My circle was pretty flimsy at this point.

Then I added a layer of smaller buttons on top of that, sewing them on to the previous layer using the holes in the bigger buttons.  The more buttons I added the more solid my shape became. I kept adding buttons where they were needed to fill out my wreath and where I needed to add stability, always twisting together my wire ends when I got to them  I kept going until I had a pretty stable wreath.  Here's a photo of the finished wreath before I added my red "berries" on.  You can also see the circle guide I drew for myself before I started.

 After I got all my greens "sewn" together I cut off all the excess wire sticking out - there was a LOT - this thing was a mess...  To help you picture this, here is how scraggly it looked after I attached the five red holly berry buttons.

 And here's a close up of some of my twisted wire,  maybe this will give you an idea of how I put this together.

 Then I attached a red ribbon onto my wreath for a hanger.

 I made sure to hide it under the buttons on the front, like so:

 Then, although it was pretty stable at this point, I figured it could still get bent up pretty easily when it was packed up for the year, so I hot glued a felt ring on the back of the wreath.

 Now all that was left was to glue my ribbon bow on the front.  It was a lot of work, but I'm so so happy with how this turned out - it is pretty much exactly how I pictured it.  It's my favorite ornament creation so far.  Is it dorky to say that I'm really proud of myself?