Halloween Wreaths

I am sure most of you already know – I am not a crafty person. Much as I would like to be crafty – It never seems to work. The Buds (friends) still remind me that I could not even put baby’s breath into arrangements for Number One Son’s rehearsal dinner centerpieces. You just had to put baby’s breath into straw star containers, but I could not do it. Mine looked awful. They asked me to stop because it was more trouble to redo my mess than to do it themselves- true story!

Fast forward to now and Pinterest. I want to make everything I see on those boards. People are so creative, and what they make is good. Plus I have had to grow up in the shadows of Super Sister. She was born crafting. She probably made a bow out of her umbilical cord in the womb – seriously. She is beyond amazing. Last week she told me she had made a cute Halloween wreath for her front door, and her sweet daughter-in-law Michele was also making one. Now Michele is a natural born crafter also. With Pinterest visions in my head (there was even a tutorial that I could generally understand), and Super Sister claiming that these wreaths were SO-O-O easy, (‘You really can’t mess them up,” she said. Now isn’t that the kiss of death.) Nevertheless, I decided to try making a wreath.

I went to Hobby Lobby. I was overwhelmed. I called Super Sister. She sent me pictures. ( I was still at Hobby Lobby.)

Her wreath is so wonderful. Now I really wanted to make a wreath.

I tried to duplicate the materials in Super Sister’s wreath. This was really the hard part. What would go together? Hobby Lobby did not have what Super Sister used. I couldn’t find everything I thought I needed. I went home without any supplies for making a wreath. True story – I went to Hobby Lobby SIX times and Michael’s once before I bought anything. Talk about insecure! But I am all about overcoming my fears, and for some reason I was obsessed with making a Halloween wreath. Yes, it would have been much cheaper to buy a wreath (SAM’S Club had a semi-cute one for $14.00), but I wanted to do it myself. Finally I bought some supplies – a lot of supplies – too many supplies – like, I have a lot of ribbon to return.. Super sister and the tutorial on Pinterest suggested using a Christmas greenery wreath as a base. So that is what I bought along with a bazillion rolls of mesh ribbon, tulle, decorative ribbon, and a few Halloween decorations and black and orange glass balls.

Meanwhile back at the ranch – My sweet daughter-in-law Mikel and her family stop by the house. I asked her if she would like to make a wreath – showed her Super Sister’s pictures, and she said, “Well, yes.”

Back to Hobby Lobby we went to buy more supplies. I liked having someone doing this with me.

Back home we began making the wreaths. Putting the wide mesh ribbon on the greenery wreath was not hard. We started on the outside edge and worked toward the middle. You make a loop with the mesh ribbon and secure it with the branches of the wreath. It is like using a twist tie.

I used the black and orange striped mesh ribbon first.

Mikel used the black ribbon as her base, and the black and orange stripe for her second layer.

I used the narrower purple mesh ribbon as my second layer. I thought the narrower ribbon was harder to work with than the wide mesh ribbon. We added tulle ribbon for accent (me – orange and Mikel – purple.) Then we added accent ribbons and decorations. We both could have used more decorations, and we might still add some.