Can you believe it is the last day of July!?? Where did summer go?

I may have already done the back to school shopping, but I’m not ready to let go of summer just yet. This month’s Movie Monday challenge was a great excuse to create a summer-y craft and stretch it out for a just a bit longer. I’m really excited by my ocean inspired summer fabric rag wreath this month! Check out the details below!

On the last Monday of each month, I host a group of bloggers who participate in a #MovieMondayChallenge! We decide on a topic, genre, or specific movie to use for inspiration and everyone gets free reign to create something wonderful!

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I was seriously stoked for this month’s challenge. The winning vote was Jaws, one of my all time favorite films. I first saw this movie when I was very young, and living in California. You might think that I’d hate it because of that, but instead I developed that fascination with sharks at a young age. (My boys have that fascination now, though I didn’t put them through the trauma of the movie!)

I most definitely do not go in the ocean much (thanks in large part to this film) but I still believe it is one of the best examples of cinema around.  

Did you know Jaws was the first ever summer blockbuster? True story! Not only that, but probably one of the greatest things to happen to this film was for everything to go SPECTACULARLY WRONG.  Because the mechanical shark was never tested in salt water, it didn’t work well or at all; therefore most of the movie, you don’t even see it. This actually creates the best tension and scariest effect of the movie. (And let’s face it, when you do see it, a little of that fright goes away – that is a pretty fake looking shark for a contemporary audience.) However, that doesn’t change the sheer awesome power of this film!

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If you’re a movie buff at all, you probably know a few of the iconic trivia bits about Jaws.

• The shark was nicknamed Bruce, after Steven Spielberg’s lawyer.

• The shark barely worked, at first sinking to the bottom of Nantucket Sound, and frequently malfunctioning. (One time causing George Lucas to get his head trapped in the mouth!)

• Roy Scheider (Chief Brody) ad-libbed the famous line, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat”.

• The iconic Jaws theme catapulted John Williams’ career – despite being at first laughed at by Steven Spielberg when he heard it.

Can you tell how much I love this movie?? Even so, I admit to being a bit stumped as to what to create for this challenge at first. My boys are into sharks now, but I couldn’t think of anything that would fit for their room as far as decor. As I typically do, I decided to let the quotes of the film guide me, since I frequently find inspiration in movie quotes.

“I speak movie quotes fluently.”

Now, I know this movie backwards and forwards, but there’s no fun in a movie challenge without another viewing of the film. It did not surprise me in the least that I found my inspiration in one of my all-time favorite scenes; Quint, Hooper, and Chief Brody comparing battle scars and getting drunk aboard the Orca while waiting for the shark to appear.

This is easily one of the best scenes filmed in movie history.  The tale Robert Shaw (Quint) tells of his experience aboard the U.S.S. Indianapolis was actually dialogue rewritten by Shaw himself. It’s a powerful moment in the film, and the tension is broken shortly after by the three drunk men singing. They pound on the table to the beat and of course this moment is when the shark decides to remind them they are still very much in danger. This moment is what I chose to use as my inspiration.

Show me the way to go home

I’m tired and I wanna go to bed

I had a little drink about an hour ago

and it’s gone right to my head

Wherever I may roam

on land or sea or foam

you can always hear me singing this song

Show me the way to go home.

I found a home shaped sign on clearance at Michaels, and dug through my own crafty stash for fabric and a wreath form I’ve probably hoarded for years without using. Actually, this would have been an excellent Crafty De-Stash challenge post as well, since I was only out of pocket $3!

How to Make Your Own Ocean Inspired Summer Rag Wreath

I focused on my quote from the song as well as the colors of the ocean. An old rope scrap from my stash was a must to tie in the seafaring, ocean themed look of my rag wreath.

Supplies:

• blue, white, burlap fabric, cut into strips
• scissors
• wire wreath form
• rope
• wooden board
• vinyl
• Cricut or other cutting machine
• transfer tape
• hot glue gun
• blue, white, grey acrylic paint and brush

I gathered up my fabric and began cutting strips of blue fleece and other blue fabric scraps. (Funnily enough, while working on this wreath, I watched two films I’d never seen before, in an effort to continue my cinematic education.)

1.  Cut strips of fabric. Length will be determined by your size wreath form, but you want at least enough to fold in half and loop. Err on the long side, you can trim the ends once they are tied on.
2. Fold the strip of fabric in half.
3. Slide looped end of fabric under one wire on your wreath, working from the outside in.
4. Slip your fingers into the loop and widen in order to pull ends through and tie off around the wire.
5. Continue around the wire form with all your fabric scraps to create a full wreath.

I had found this sign at Michaels after I had my idea in mind and knew it would be perfect for my wreath once I made it over.

The rope tied in nicely with my planned effect, so I grabbed three bottles of acrylic paint and a brush and started painting over my sign. I used a pale blue, white, and grey to keep my ocean themed color scheme going.

Next up, I popped over to my beloved Picmonkey to create my sign lettering. I used the Picmonkey provided fonts “Pacifico” and “Bitter” for this sign. I typed my quote onto a transparent background and saved it as a PNG format image. (This allows for easy cutting in your Cricut or other cutting machines.)

I actually created two different designs, not sure until the very end which one I preferred.

All of my designs are free for personal use; just right click and save as. Please do no share my designs or use them for sale in any way.

This . . .

or this?

I decided the first arrow looked more Native American than nautical.  I uploaded my chosen image to my Cricut Design Space and set it to cut. I loaded my mat with tan vinyl and cut out my quote.

Using transfer tape, I applied my quote to my freshly painted house sign and hot glued it to my wreath. I also hot glued my rope piece to the other side of the wreath.

Duuuuuuuuh, duh…

Duuuuuuuuh, duh…

Dududududududududududududu…

Duduluduhhhhhhhhh!!!

I love my ocean inspired, JAWS inspired summer rag wreath!!

Now let’s see what everyone else was inspired to create for this month’s #MovieMondayChallenge!! If you’d like to join our Facebook group, you can request an invite here.

 

 

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