Halloween Wreath

The only time I have had a wreath in the past it at Christmas time,but this year I decided to make one for Halloween too!

I didn't want to spend too much money, and managed to get all the things I needed for around $10 (besides my glue gun, hot glue, a bit of yarn and wreath hanger), so it really wasn't expensive.

I bought this 18 inch wreath at Michaels for $3.99, and their halloween ribbon was on sale for $1 so I bought two designs I liked.

 

I had some orange coloured yarn so I began by tying it on at the back out of sight then wrapping it around the wreath and then back again.

 

Then I took the first ribbon and again knotted it on at the back of the wreath, and wrapped it around.  With the second, I went in the other direction to get a criss-cross look.

 

All I really had in my head when I was planning this wreath was that I wanted a pile of skulls on it - so, I went to the dollar store and bought two sizes of plastic skulls, and I threw in a fake crow and some little shiny bat embellishments for good measure!

I attached the crow first, off centre.  There was a little wire attached to the bottom of the legs but it wasn't really long enough, so I also used a bit of hot glue to help keep him in place, on both feet and where his back met the wreath too.  Apologies for this picture quality, but I wanted to give you an idea of where he ended up.

I then got out my large skulls and began to glue them randomly on the lower side of the wreath opposite the crow, and a couple under Mr Crow's feet.  Then I went back and filled in the gaps with the smaller skulls.

I hot glued a flock of bats above the skull pile, and again placed a couple on the other side, behind the crow.  I had actually bought some white ghost embellishments too but thought this would be too much so left them out - I'm sure I'll find another use for them...

And here is the finished product hanging on the front door!

I love the way my skull pile turned out!

The bats gave it an extra ellement and an added shine...

 

And of course Mr Crow lends a nice, spooky, halloween edge!

Nikki x

Linked with

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Spooky Spiders!

Some of you may remember I posted my yarn web last week, and now here are the spiders to match!

 

I know technically spiders are supposed to have one web each, but I couldn't resist making two! 

 

I took 2 of the large polystyrene balls (each about the size of a tennis ball) and one smaller one, which I cut in half with an exacto knife.

 

I scooped out a little of the insides of the two halves of the smaller ball, to make them fit a bit more snuggly against the big balls...

Then glued them to the big balls with hot glue.  I then used small pieces of torn kitchen paper and slightly watered down white glue to cover them both - I wanted to do this to hide the polystyrene, add a little bit of extra strength, and give a nice texture.  I find kitchen paper much easier to work with than newspaper on small items, especially those with curves.

While I left those overnight to dry, I took some plastic covered green garden wire, and cut 16 x 9 inch long sections - I wanted the legs to be about 8 inches long and added a little bit extra which would poke into the spider to attach it.

I wrapped them each in masking tape after straightening them out as best I could.

Once the bodies were dry, I began to attach the legs, I liked the look when they were all attached around where the body meets the head.  I poked them carefully into their position, then removed them one at a time and used a little spot of hot glue on the hole before popping them back in.  I twisted masking tape around another small piece of wire and cut it into 4 small sections for the mandibles, which were attached in the same way.

Not looking very scary at this point, but at least a little more like spiders and a little less like tiny snowmen!

Next was bending the legs into shape - the wire bends really easily and holds its shape - I bent each leg in 2 places (resulting in 3 "sections" per leg, if you know what I mean) I bent the 2 front pairs forward, and the 2 back pairs backwards.  Looking a bit more spider-like now!

Then it was on to the painting - it took only one coat of black craft paint with a few minor touch ups once dry - and finally I added 2 small jewel-like red eyes to each spider with a spot of white glue.

My web is on the mirror over my mantle, so that's where my spiders were destined for.  Unfortunately the only colour of sticky tac I had was white, so I tried to limit it to very small pieces - one on the end of each leg.  These spiders are so light weight, I'm hoping there will be no problems with them staying put!

The first has been positioned over the web at the top of the mirror...

 

And the second as though it is climbing from the mantle onto the mirror...

And here's a shot of my whole mantle with the spiders attached - you can also see here my Halloween Countdown Blocks, my Papier Mache Pumpkin, my Lunch Bag Pumpkin and of course my Yarn Spider Web.   I never claimed to be artistic when it came to arranging mantle's, I know it's a little busy and needs some reorganising..!

Nikki x

Linked with

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