Patriotic Eagle Wreath

Our handcrafted salute
to the red, white,and blue!

With the 4th of July near, an eagle wreath was a perfect project.

Make it your own.

The "Patriotic Eagle Wreath" you see all over the internet can look pretty impressive. But the sizes, materials, quality, and prices varied greatly. So, my neighbor and I decided to make our own, and we're really happy with how they turned out.

My neighbor/friend is a crafty person in her own right and we both find a sense of relaxation when working on projects. I wanted to have everything purchased and ready to go so the two of us could pick a weekend and hunker down in my basement workshop to create something truly special for the holiday.

The feathers for this wreath are made from carpenter's wood biscuits used for seamless joining on furniture. They come in 3 sizes 20, 10, and 0, in packages of 100 usually. The smaller size pieces we would need for the head and neck of the eagle, so you need a little less of them. I'm guessing we used in total about 300 biscuits on the wreath, the majority being the red, white, and blue stripes. You are going to need lots of hot glue for this project!

My tips are to not wrap the biscuits straight around the wreath but have the stripes taper on an angle from the inside of the wreath to the outer edge. Don’t glue the biscuits flat to the wreath, but mermaid them and allow one end to be raised looking more like feathers. Give the head position a slightly profile view so the wreath is much more dimensional. When finishing the head, since the half-circle Styrofoam ends abruptly, we used our last white biscuits gluing them partially to the edge so they hung down past it and continued the look.

Both wreaths came out really great and we had an absolute blast doing it together! This project took us about a total of 10 hours over a 3 day weekend. Happy 4th of July!

See gallery below.

Project Materials

Some of my purchases.

Styrofoam wreath Burlap ribbon Wood biscuits 20 Wood biscuits 10 Wood biscuits 0 Spray paint Air clay Craft Eyes Wooden craft stars Heavy zip ties LOTS of hot glue sticks Ryobi glue gun

BRINGING IT TOGETHER

My first stumbling block was the wreath itself. I wanted a nice size to fill a door, so at least a 20" wreath. I knew this wouldn't work on wire. My first purchase was a hard extruded Styrofoam wreath. But, as you see, the surface wasn't anywhere big enough for this project.

I then found a 20" flat wreath with a nice wide surface.But, how would we angle our feathers around the wreath?

You take a knife and trim the top round.

Worked quite well!

As it can be challenging to hot glue to Styrofoam itself, I then wrapped the wreath in a burlap wide ribbon. We now had a solid surface to work with and glue on.

Before mounting biscuits, fashion a multi-zip hanger for the top back.

We also painted the burlap to guide us on our colors and it will help to hide any gaps. Using a large half syrofoam ball for the head.

The feathers are carpenters wood biscuits used for seamless joining on furniture. They come in 3 sizes 20, 10, and 0, in packages of 100.

Our husbands were put to work as well and they were in charge of all the spray painting of the biscuits. Both sides so you don't have to worry about undersides or edges not being covered. We did this on large pieces of box cardboard outside.

While the husbands were handling the painting we began working on our beaks since they would need a full day to dry. I purchase air clay from on line.

Critical thing is that we made a tinfoil armature for the inside of the beak and wrapped the clay around it and then smoothed out the shape. This was done so the beak wouldn't be too heavy and not adhere well when glued. Once the beaks were made and the base of the beak fit the curve of the Styrofoam head, we set them aside to dry until the next day.

The main stripes are the size 20 biscuits. You'll use the smaller 10 & 0 on the head and neck.

Mermaid the biscuits as you are placing them.

When mounting your biscuits, glue them on just one end so the other end can be raised a little to look more like feathers.

We painted our beaks and added a piece of woodskewer into the foil.

This will help support the beak when gluing it down. Also used cardboard glued to make a transition ramp for the neck.

You need to know where your beak and eyes will be before starting feathers. Try to keep face slightly profile and angle the head feathers to match.

Mounted beak. All ready for head and neck feathers. You will use the 0(zero) size for the head and the 10's for the neck. We approached this from the beak over the head and down to the neck.

They are really coming along!

Close up of feather layering and wood stars.

A proud finish!! My wreath is on a door under a covered porch. If yours will be open to the elements, you may want to do an additional spray sealing.