It is that time of year again when the streets will be filled with miniature ghouls and goblins. If your house suffers the same fate as mine, then they already haunt the halls and stairwells. These critters are howling and growling for activities and themed crafts to ring in the season!
If you’re like me, you prefer creating treasures that will not only last for years to come but will work well with your decor. Of course, in a house hold much like mine, it must have “NO Budget” (the husband doesn’t let me spend any money). Obviously it is unrealistic to make totally amazing creations on zero dollars, but we will keep the costs to a minimum.
Check out the list of items we used in making this wreath, but remember this is all personal preference. You may want to vary it to match your tastes. I tend to follow the rule of less is more but that doesn’t mean it’s right. Make this project your own.
Items used:
- 1 Black Halloween Wreath
- 1 Wide Polka-Dot Wire Ribbon
- 3 Thin Solid Colored Ribbons
- 1 Bag of Harvest Colored Jewels
- 1 Purple Sparkly Spider
- 1 Orange Sparkly Spider
- 1 Glue Gun w/glue sticks
- 1 metallic or black twisty tie
Run (don’t walk or they might be all gone by the time you get there) to your nearest craft center and pick up a basic black wreath like the one seen in this picture. They are cheap inexpensive and the perfect palette from which to start.
When picking your ribbon you have a choice (we went with the $.99 special spools), you can make the bow wide and the ribbon around the wreath thin like we did, all of it wide or all of it thin, it is completely up to you and your personal preference. I like the look of the thin ribbon around the wreath using the wide wire ribbon for the bow; it is easier to work with and allows more wreath for show when adding the jewels later. But I have done the large ribbon all the way round the wreath before as well. If you choose to go this route, replace the purchase of the thin ribbon with an additional wide roll. If you question whether you have enough, buy an extra spool; it is always better to have extra than not enough.
Need I tell you to remove all tags? I would hope not. Let’s begin. Lay out your wreath and fluff. This alone will make a big difference. Set aside.
- Take the ribbon you have chosen for the bow and remove all of it from the spool. Deciding how wide you want your bow to be measure from the end of the ribbon in and fold. (For me this is generally 9 to 10 inches long with the cinch in the center) Now fold the ribbon again over the end. When you have wound the ribbon approximately four times stop and wrap the twisty tie around the center, cinching in with a twist to create the bow.
- Once you have this secure you can fan the sides out to your liking, puffing and fluffing until the bow looks just right. If you want part of the larger bow design to hang down the center of your wreath, take this into consideration when making. Either cut the ribbon length out before hand and run it across the back, attaching with the twisty or buy extra ribbon if you fear you won’t have enough for this scenario.
- Now that you have your bow, get your other ribbon or ribbons ready. We have three so we tied them together and anchored them to the back of the wreath. Have fun weaving them in and out, back and forth and around the wreath. Make sure you have enough left over to hang from your bow if you like this look. Unless your wreath is considerably larger than ours or your ribbon much shorter, it shouldn’t be a problem. In our case we took two colors one way and the third the opposite. It was anarchy! LOL Have fun with this, that’s what it
is all about. - Once the ribbons are in place you can anchor the bow. This is an easy thing to do. Take an extra piece of the thinner ribbon (In our case we used all three together, using them as one), or whatever ribbon type you chose to use, and wrap it around the center of the bow securing it directly to the wreath in the location of your choice and tie it off in the back. Just let the extra dangle down nicely as we have, making sure to cut a nice clean end. I always cut a crisp sharp angle.
- Jewel time! You can waste time trying to tie these precious stones nicely to the wreath but ultimately they will fall where ever they want when you lift and hang the decoration on your door. You probably won’t be happy. I know I wasn’t. Save time and irritation, get out the glue gun and warm that puppy up. Decide where you want each jewel to be and glue them into place. It’s as easy as 1-2-3. You don’t need to use them all but you can if you want. I leave that up to you. Once all your treasures are in place be sure to remove every little strings the glue leaves. We don’t want those clinging to our beautiful work of art.
- You can see it is really coming together now! We are in the home stretch. All it needs is that final little *WOW*. That special something that simply makes “IT”. Grab your pretty spooky little spiders and clip them into place. The kids and I had predetermined where ours would go before we started gluing on the jewels. You might want to do the same. One small spider to the bow and one sparkly scary, eye-catching spider front and center. Wa La! You and the kids have now created a spooktacular wreath for the front door that will make you the envy of all your neighbors.
I hope you enjoyed this Halloween craft. I would love to hear from you. Do you like to craft at the holiday time? Do you have a favorite?
This is so amazingly cool and what good luck that I *just* printed out a bunch of coupons for Michael’s! I’m going to head over there right now and get all the stuff so my son and I can make this today after school.
What fun! Thanks for the post and inspiration. I love, love, love to craft at holiday time. I hope you’ll have more fun stuff to share.
Hi Tameri! Thanks for stopping by. I do plan on having more crafts assuming Kristen agrees it is the right direction for my blog after I finish her course. 🙂 Good think you got those coupons!
What a great tutorial! Thanks for stopping by my blog earlier! *big grins*
Thank you Myndi! You are very welcome! And thank you for swinging by here. Glad you liked it. It won’t always be crafts so check it out from time to time if you like.
I love this crafting idea and the pictures are so pretty and make it easy to follow along. I want to do one!!
I am glad you like it. This month should be full of all things Halloween!
Have glue gun will follow directions. Thanks for the tutorial.
You’re welcome Pat. Have fun and thanks for stopping by!
She writes, she crafts, she tweets. She is the bomb. I am so jealous Debra. How do you manage to do it all! The last craft project I did was making jewelry for my wedding. My glue gun in hidden in a closet somewhere. Thanks for mentioning me in your tweets.
Don’t be jealous. I am sure you out shine me in many other things. We all have our talents. Hope you will stop by again in the future. You are welcome for the mention. Thank you for stopping by!
(I originally replied wrong so it didn’t show up under your comment. Doh!)
Lovely wreath! It’s my job to do the pumpkins, except I don’t like the mess of carving, so I draw on them instead. They last longer that way.
Thank you Angela! I bet your drawings look wonderful! I am the one helping the kids with their pumpkins every year as well. I would love to get out of carving. The pumpkins never last more than a week here. My kids always get fancy on me. Last year we had Snow White, a Storm Trooper and Jack the Skeleton. We also got a couple of gourds and made little fairie houses. This year I will be away on a little writer’s retreat the week prior, so it will be interesting to see what daddy does. 🙂
Wow, it’s incredible the kinds of patterns for jack-o-lanterns people come up with. The faerie houses sound cute!
Faerie houses out of gourds? If you took pictures, can you please send them to me? I’d love to try to make them.
I’m such a freak, but I love, love, love the ooey gooey guts of the pumpkin. My job is to scrape it all out. Carving them is NOT in my skill set. Triangle eyes, some teeth, and maybe a nose is about as creative as I get. I am so sad.
I am looking for them! You can have all kinds of fun. Make little 2 story houses with smoke coming from the chimney. Right now I can only find the pictures of the white pumpkin we made a house out of. :-/