Craft: Halloween Wreath

I love to decorate for the holidays! All of them, especially Halloween! So years ago when we first bought our home I had picked up a Halloween wreath for the outside of our house. Last year I noticed that it was really deteriorating, so thought that maybe this year my daughter and I could spruce it up a bit, and create a new Halloween inspired wreath ourselves! So when I was at Walmart I picked up a few things I thought we could use! The wreath that we had was ’wicker’ looking with foam character on it, so wanted to go a different route, and this is what we ended up with!

What you will need to create this wreath:

• hot glue gun
• something to use as a base (we reused our old wreath, but you can buy one similar at a craft store, or use a styrofoam base as well. You could use cardboard if you weren’t going to have out where rain might get to it!)
• black garland
• orange pumpkin decoration
• toothpick
• orange ribbon

Directions:

1. Unravel the garland. On the back side of what is going to be your wreath, add a spot of hot glue and attach the garland end there.
2. Wrap garland around and around the base, making sure that it is close each time you wrap, so that you cannot see the base underneath, and it is full volume wise. Continue to do this till the entire base is covered in the garland.
3. On the back side of the wreath, secure the end of the garland with another dab of hot glue.
4. I inserted a toothpick into the bottom of my pumpkin decoration. Then added hot glue around the base of the pumpkin where the toothpick was inserted. Then stuck the toothpick/pumpkin into the middle of bottom of the wreath opening, where I wanted it to be positioned. Make sure it is secured.
5. Make a bow out of the ribbon – whatever design of bow you like! (For mine I took 2 pieces of ribbon the same length and looped them securing the ends of both with a dab of hot glue. Then took 2 more pieces to use as the ends hanging, secured those to the 2 loops with hot glue. Then took another piece of ribbon and wrapped it around the middle as to make it look like the middle ‘bubble’ of the bow.)
6. Then secure your bow onto the wreath with hot glue. I chose to do this at the very middle bottom of the wreath under my pumpkin.
7. To make the top loop for hanging, I took a piece of ribbon the size of the diameter of the wreath. Attaching the 2 ends on the back side of the wreath (be sure that it is not looped around too tight, as to squish the garland too much).
8. Then take another piece of ribbon and fold it in half, cross the ends over slightly so that it makes an ’x’. Then glue this to the back side of the ribbon you secured onto the wreath previously. Be sure to secure it firmly, as this loop is what you will use to hang the wreath, so want it to be on good, as not to drop the wreath!
9. Be sure the glue is hardened before hanging. You now have a funky Halloween wreath!

DIY Halloween Wreath!

The total cost to make this wreath was realy quite inexpensive. I already had the base and the hot glue gun, so only had to purchase the garland, ribbon and pumpkin. So the total cost was only $5.93!!

** You could really use any coloured garland, ribbon or any sort of decoration! This wreath is easy enough for children to help out, but be careful as the hot glue gun is just that, hot!**