Dollar Store Halloween Wreath

Earlier this month I received my all time favorite magazine in the mail, the Halloween edition of Country Living.  Love it, love it, love it.  This magazine is so full of fun Halloween decorating ideas, but there was one idea in particular that caught my eye and looked easy and cheap to make.

This Halloween wreath is made out of crepe paper and a Styrofoam wreath.  I looked at it and thought, "I can make that, and I can make it even cuter."  So I did.

I picked up this orange crepe paper and Styrofoam wreath at the dollar store, and these stick pins at Wal-Mart, and for less than $4 got myself the supplies needed to make my wreath.  I like color, so I went with the orange crepe paper while Country Living went for a more Gothic look with black.  I like both, but am a little partial to my version.

This was so easy.  Take your Styrofoam wreath (I did a little shaving to mine to give it a little more rounded look - it doesn't have to turn out perfectly because you won't even see it) and wrap the whole thing in crepe paper.  Just use some of your little stick pins to keep it in place from behind.

Then cut your crepe paper into 4 inch strips.  You'll need upwards of 100 or so strips depending on the size of your wreath and how many loop de loops you want.  I used a row of 3-4 across.  The magazine used only 3, but there were spots that I thought were a little sparse and so I often used 4.  You simply fold the paper strips in half and then pin them right into your wreath.

Do this over and over until you've covered the entire wreath.

You didn't think I'd stop there did you?  I like the orange colored wreath, but definitely thought it needed a little accessorizing.  To do that I used one of these cute cameo pins and spruced it up with some ribbon and felt.

Here's how.

You take some ribbon and thread a needle with thread through it on one side of the ribbon (put a knot at the end of your thread so that it doesn't pull through all the way) and then you just keep on threading and pulling to get a ruffled effect with your ribbon.  Now I used a fairly narrow ribbon so I hot glued it around a circle of felt to make it appear larger, if you had a wider ribbon you could skip this step.  Then I simply hot glued my cameo button pin onto the ribbon, added some ribbon tails (not pictured) and then pinned the adornment to my wreath.  I'm loving the results and think it's the perfect way to dress up an otherwise boring Halloween wreath.

That's it, that's all folks.  For a couple of bucks and less than an hour's worth of time I think I've got myself a very cute Halloween wreath.  Now if my husband would just let me decorate for Halloween already...