DIY | thumbtack wreath

I can't take credit for this one.

I had pinned this months ago and been on the lookout for gold thumbtacks ever since.

Turns out, those buggers are hard to find.

(it IS possible here that it was just me, not looking hard enough, or in the wrong places or... Yeah, it might have just been me)

Of course after looking at two different craft stores (much as I love me a good craft store, I don't like to spend more time in one than is absolutely necessary, let alone two of them) and various Target locations (what does the Up & Up brand have against normal thumbtacks? Why only colored, round-topped tacks and whatnot? Where is simplicity when you need it?)... I got stupidly excited when I found the little suckers at the dollar store.

Now if I'd read the original tutorial a little closer I'd have read there ever-so-closely that this is exactly where the original poster suggested one go.

So uh... Yeah. So much for my fine print-reading skills.

All in all, I loved this project. 

$3 for the styrofoam wreath (I used the larger of the two options at the store) and... Almost ten boxes of thumbtacks.

For those of you not doing the math, that's nearly 3,000 thumbtacks. 

What can I say, it was a slow night.

But once I was done (and I finished both A Christmas Story and The Man Who Came To Dinner) I was supremely tickled with the results. 

I started with one ring of tacks all the way around, lining the pin part of each subsequent tack up along side the head of the previous one. Layering up in the same way all the way around the wreath gave it a sort of armored scale look about it, almost like little shingles. The original tutorial had it wrapping up with a big piece of ribbon but using the jute twine I had on hand gave it a rustic elegance that I love.

Can I get away with leaving this up year round?