Time to reveal the Halloween themed wreath I started making in August! I have been meaning to make this for years, but kept forgetting until the day before Halloween. Not this year!
Supplies:
- Foam wreath (or use a pool noodle, like I did)
- Yarn
- Thread (to match yarn)
- Glue
- Beaded spiders (see my Christmas spider tutorial)
- Two screws (for hanging)
- Wire (for hanging)
- Ribbon (optional - for hanging)
After I made my spiders (using this tutorial of mine) and turned a pool noodle into a wreath (it's still holding strong!) I was ready. I glued the end of a piece of yarn to anchor it.
Then I started wrapping. Oh boy. No one seems to mention in their yarn wreath tutorials what a boring and never-ending task making a yarn wreath is. In the beginning, I hated wrapping the yarn so much I almost abandoned the idea again. I persevered (mostly because I'd already shared my pool noodle and plans), and spread it out over about a week of re-runs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. An excellent choice because a) I loved (and still love) that show and b) the campy-scary plot lines were perfectly themed.
I am sure there are a million ways to do this, but I wrapped the yarn firmly, but with gaps, and then when I had a few rows done, I simply moved the yarn over. It sped up the process instead of lining up each one individually.
When I was done, I tied off the yarn in the back. To attach the spiders, I ran some white thread through one end of the eye pin and tied it tightly, with the knot at the back. I wanted them to dangle a bit, like they're crawling around. You could also use a dab of glue and affix them by their bodies.
I used the same thread to dangle a spider in the middle.
To hang the wreath, I originally just wrapped a piece of black ribbon around the wreath:
But then Hubby came up with this genius idea: he twisted in two screws (with a touch of glue on the ends) and then once the glue dried overnight, he wrapped heavy duty picture hanging wires around the screw, fashioning a little loop. We hung the loop on a screw already in our front door and it's completely hidden.
I only did one layer of yarn and, in certain light, the orange of the pool noodle seems to make the cream a bit orangey. It works for my orange, black and white colour scheme but for other noodle-users, I recommend a darker yarn or double wrapping.
For the first time, I'm thrilled with our condo-issued orange front door!
Here are some creepy crawly close ups:
My neighbor tells me that her little girl loves this wreath and she wants to come over to touch, examine, and pet each spider, so that totally makes me smile.
