Time needed: 45 minutes

1. Clean and Sort your Feathers

   I just dusted them off removing excess dirt with my hands while sitting out in the yard. Then I used a damp paper towel to wipe, when needed, for feathers that were dirty or had separated. Then I dove into sorting the feathers. I sorted them 1st by size: Small, Medium, Large then by Colors into groups – blacks, white, 1/2 black and 1/2 brown, gray, barred, etc
   

2. Plan Your Layout

   I took the wreath and marked it in 1/3rds on the outside of the wreath. Then I took the feather color I had the most of and divided them into 3 small groups, placing them in the wreath on those markings. Working with the large feathers only, I pushed them into the outside of the wreath to make them to nice and long. I did 1 – 3 rows close together to create the outside layers (depending on the feather quantities I had). After fully attaching that group of feathers, I moved to the next color I had the most of. I divided them again, attaching them to the wreath in groups directly beside the 1st color moving in a clockwise pattern. Repeat until all big groupings are used. I finished by filling the gaps with smaller groupings. So on my wreath, you will only see 2 spots with gray and white feathers. This is great, keeps the wreath from being to repetitious!
   
   After all the large feathers were attached I started using the medium size feathers. I personally, didn't have a lot of these but I just pushed them into the foam at the base of the large feathers using the medium feathers to cover the quills of the large feathers. I filled those all around grouping like colors until I ran out. And remember, the base is foam, nothing is permanent.
   
   Then I ended with the small, more down like feathers. So I did the same as above pulling the groups and attaching them with the medium feathers and below the medium feathers to fill the gaps and make sure to cover all the quills. I also used these to wrap the inside of the wreath to ensure the foam base wasn't showing. I had a TON of baby, fluffy feathers so I went to town.
   
   

3. Attach Your Feathers

   The big feathers I just pushed into the foam, I did not use any glue. The medium feathers I also pushed into the foam base but some of their quills were not as strong so I did hot glue a few of these to the foam base. The baby feathers all had to be hot glued. To do this I would put about 2″ of hot glue on the foam base then, working quickly, lay the individual feathers on the glue as I saw fit. If this caused the base of the quill to stick out, I just cut them off with scissors. I repeated this over and over until all the gaps between the medium feathers were filled and no quills from the large feathers were showing.
   
   Then I moved further towards the center opening and started covering the bottoms of the medium feathers so that no quills were showing as well as covering the white foam inside of the wreath. Those little, fluffy feathers are perfect for this because you can easily bend them into the shape of a C to hug the inside of the wreath. Repeat this until no foam base is showing. Also don't be afraid to blend colors, as I started to run out of 1 color, I would start blending in another color to create a transition.
   
   Note – if you hit a point with the large feathers where you have too many holes from adding and removing feathers, just add a bit of hot glue to the base and stick it in. I had to do this a few times.