You can make a wreath out of just about anything as long as you have enough of them and you can figure out how to attach them. Here's how to make a wreath out of Barbie dolls.

Mention of this project on other sites should include a link to www.zieak.com with credit to Ryan McFarland. Thanks!

Step 1: Materials and Tools

You'll need:

A bunch of Barbie dolls
Glue (plain old superglue worked well for me)
A string of lights (go with LED ones!)
A large piece of cardboard or plastic
A large diameter hoop

You can use action figures, toy cars (Cena made that one), or just about anything else that you have a bunch of. I suggest sterilizing whatever toy you use. Chances are it is pretty dirty. And if you hang it outside for a few years and live in a damp place it just might start to grow things. Trust me. Sterilize. Let's add something to the list...

Some bleach water and a towel

For the base you can use a ring of plywood, a bicycle rim, a commercially made wreath base, a ring from a stove cooktop, or just about anything else you can find. The size will depend on the toys you're working with.

Step 2: Plan Ahead

While spending hours super gluing action figures together for my first toy wreath, i began plans for making a Barbie wreath. One obstacle to making a Barbie wreath is the difficulty in obtaining inexpensive Barbies. Well, fortunately for me, a friend was on the lookout a when they spotted bulk Barbies at just $1 each. They picked out a dozen or so and bought them for me and called to let me know about the find. Well, i went and bought the rest of them. The problem is that there was one Ken in the bunch. I didn't want my wreath to have any man-dolls in it so he became a dog toy.

Barbie bodies are quite a bit longer than the normal action figure so layout of the Barbies and the radius of the wreath had to be different than i had done in my previous project. Luckily, i have a habit of squirreling away even the least necessary parts and pieces because they might be useful someday. I had leftover hardware from rope spools and a few pieces of perforated metal that i was able to reshape into a large hoop.

Step 3: Glue the Barbies

The next thing to do was to start attaching the dolls to the hoop. I put down some cardboard so i didn't accidentally glue dolls to the oak dining room table. A little super glue goes a long way. My girlfriend was kind enough to brush out the hair on the Barbies which made them so good looking that i almost changed my mind about putting super glue in their butt cracks. But the project carried on despite any resurgence of adolescent crushes.

Once they were glued in place they needed to be fully fused to each other. Super glue was then put on every point that they contacted each other and even in their arm and hip joints to keep them solid. Wrapping the wreath with a set of lights adds a festive seasonal flare to the piece.

Step 4: Hang on the Wall

It looks alright on a wall without lights but I think you'll agree that the lit version really looks quite nice.

I built this in the fall of 2004 and it has survived well. It has been outside the front door for a few years and most people actually don't seem to notice it. It could, however use a cleaning. I might try misting it with some bleach water from a spray bottle in the spring.