Fun Halloween Wreath

How often do you change your wreaths for different holidays? I get tired of the same wreath year after year so I reinvent my wreaths every so often. The wreath I made last autumn is now a Halloween wreath. I recycled the flowers onto my mantle and I reused the grapevine wreath for my new Halloween wreath.

Most of the items I used for the new wreath I had floating around in my Halloween decorations. I used a cheesecloth I dyed gray last year with a black paint and water mix. The skeleton hands were from a package of 12 that I hadn’t used and who knows when I bought it. The spider was from another package of 12 that I have used over the years. The chalkboard is a wood cut out I painted.

The few things I did purchase for this wreath were the skulls, again a package of 12 I got at Michael’s for 2.99, and the flowers, which I hit Michaels on a 70% off Halloween floral stems sale and got them dirt cheap.

Before I started, I aged my skulls. They were too plain right out of the packaging. I used a black sharpie to fill in the eyes, nostril cavities, and a few teeth.

After I used the sharpie on them, I applied antiquing wax to further age them.

My next step was to make small top hats for them. I pulled out some Halloween scrapbook paper to make the hats. To make it easier I have a template here as a PDF download. This is printable onto the wrong side of scrapbook paper. It prints in landscape format.

I cut out all three circles and the rectangle.

 

On the two larger circles I also cut out the middle, these will sandwich together for the brim.

 

I cut the notches, folded them out and glued the sides together.

 

Then I slipped the top brim over it resting on the cut notches.

I glued the bottom brim to the top sandwiching the notches in between the two brims.

Once the brim is glued it can be shaped it while it is drying. I curled up the sides a bit and pulled the front down for shape. Also, you can trim the brim so the pieces match exactly.

The last part is adding the top of the hat. Cut the notches on the paper and put it into the hat gluing the tabs as you go. It takes a little finagling to get it just right but it’s not hard.

Here are my guys waiting for their final resting place on the wreath. 🙂

 

I added the new flowers last.

 

I can change the greeting when I want but right now I like the Haunted Mansion greeting.

This wreath will be around a while. Well, at least a few years.

I will be linking up with these parties.