Halloween Wreath

Hello again! It's been a while since I last posted but it's been a crazy few weeks at school for both Aaron and I. Despite all of the craziness however, I somehow found the time to put together a really cute, easy, and fairly reasonably-priced craft I thought I'd share.

Some of you may know of my recent fascination with Pinterest. My sister-in-law, Koloni, showed me some fun ideas she'd found there and introduced me about a week ago. I think it's fair to say I've been amazed by the clever ideas on this site more over the last 7 days than I have probably been in my entire life. Seriously, simple, creative concepts I would never in a million years have thought of! In fact, I'm a little afraid that my blog will end up turning into a craft blog but I'll try my best not to let that happen. ;) Anyway, I ended up making this really cute Halloween wreath made from strips of Halloween fabric. It's a little time consuming, but it keeps your hands busy and it's lots of fun!

Monday night I went to Joann's and got everything I would need. I ended up getting a total of 2 yards of fabric in 6 different patterns (1/3 yard [or 1 foot] of each). They were all anywhere from 30-50% off so they cost me less than $2 each. The paint and sponge brush were super cheap (less than $1 together) and the wooden letters were $1 each and each package came with two letters. I was going to go with "Boo" but the store was out of "O" so I went with "Eek". The wire wreath was originally $2.49 but I found it online for $.75 and they matched the price. :)

Here's how it works:

1. Start by cutting your fabric into strips. I didn't have a good way of measuring because I don't have a rotary cutter or mat so I settled for folding the fabric in half length-wise and cutting the fold, then folding in half again, cutting the fold, and then folding in thirds and cutting the folds so I ended up with 12 long strips of fabric. I then did the same thing with the long strips folding them in half "hamburger style" and then half again and cutting the folds so I ended up with 96 strips per fabric. They ended up being roughly 5.5" x 1"

2. Tie your fabric strips around your wire wreath in random order. I tied mine around the two inner most rings and then the two outer most rings rather than each ring individually. Once I'd tied 5 or 6 I took another strip and tied it around the middle of them to group them all together and add a little texture and volume.

3. Paint your letters. The tutorial I saw had connected the letters to the wreath by creating hooks out of bobby pins and hot gluing them to the wreath. I decided to take a different approach and hang my letters in the middle of the wreath with fishing wire.

There you go! Enjoy your super fun and easy decoration for Halloween. :) More to come!