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Tennis Racket Wreath

I like to change my front door wreath with the seasons and crafted a tennis racket wreath to hang on my front door for summer.

Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.

Our front door now screams, “It’s Summer!” with this bright addition.
Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.

Do you want to know how I made this?  Keep reading!

How to Make a Dahlia Tennis Racket Wreath

Supplies

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Old Tennis Racket

Spray Paint in desired color

Scrap Piece of Cardboard

E6000 Glue

Felt in desired Colors – Amounts needed listed below

Scissors – This brand is my favorite for sewing and for cutting fabric.

Rotary Cutter

Quilting Ruler

Glue Gun and Glue Sticks

Fabric Stiffener

Steps to Make a Tennis Racket Dahlia

Spray Paint the Racket

I started by spray painting the racket brown.  This poor Babolat looks to be perfectly fine but it has a small crack in the frame making it unusable.
Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.

Cut the Cardboard

Trace around the racket head on a piece of cardboard, cut it out, and glue it to the racket strings with E6000 glue.
Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.

Cut the Felt

While the cardboard dried, make the petals.  I chose three colors of felt and cut them into 2 x 6”, 2 x 4”, and 2 x 2” pieces.
Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.

Cut the pieces three layers at a time.  For the petals I didn’t use a pattern, I simply cut them with my scissors into a leaf shape.

I used another Babolat racket as a guide to figure out how many pieces of felt I’d need.  I ended up making two layers of 2 x 6” yellow, one layer of 2 x 6” orange, two layers of 2 x 4” orange, and then enough 2 x 2” petals made of white to fill the middle.  I ended up using 7 sheets of yellow, 6 1/2 sheets of orange, and 4 sheets of white.  At $.29 a sheet, this ended up being a very inexpensive project.

Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.
DW4

Glue Petals to Racket

I prepared all of the petals before I glued them to the racket by putting a dab of hot glue (I use cool melt) near the bottom of each petal and pinching to make the glue stick.  To speed up the process, I stuck each petal under a book until it dried.  This step went quickly as the drying time was less than a minute.
Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.

Once the petals were ready, I glued them to the racket in layers, overlapping the petals slightly.

DW8
Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.

Keep gluing until the racket head is full of petals.Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.

Spray Petals with Fabric Stiffener

It is hot and humid here in Virginia and I feared that the felt may droop.  To try to prevent this, I sprayed the finished “Dahlia” with fabric stiffener to give each petal a bit of support.
Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.

Hang the Tennis Racket Dahlia

After the glue dried, the Tennis Racket Dahlia was ready to hang on my door.
Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.
Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.

I’m pleased as punch with this project!
Tennis Racket Dahlia - Use an old or broken tennis racket to make a Tennis Racket Dahlia to hang on a wall or door.

21 Comments

  1. Love that this combines your love of tennis! Thank you again for letting me know about my “no reply” blogger settings. I checked and they are set correctly, so I deleted and reset them. Not sure what is going on. Could you try responding this to comment when you have time? Thank you!

  2. Too much fun!! Love those gorgeous summery colors. What a pretty project, Paula. 🙂

  3. That is so stinkin’ cute! I love how it turned out! It’s so bright and colorful that it just screams summer. Thanks for the tip about the stiffner. I should’ve used it for my fabric flowers on my burlap wreath. They totally wilted!

  4. Paula, this is darling, and especially appropriate for you and your husband! What a bright, cheerful way for a couple of tennis players to welcome people to their home. 🙂

  5. I love this! and how you can see your front door from the sidewalk, it really does scream summer – dahlia’s are such magnificent flowers.

  6. Oh my gosh – this is too cute! I have two rackets in the basement…
    Dropping by from Met Monday.

    Allison
    Atticmag

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