Halloween Wreath

I'm not a big fan of the scary parts of Halloween. I like dressing up and pumpkins and Halloween parties, but I could really do without the spiders and skeletons and ghouls. And since our house is on a pretty busy road, we never get trick-or-treaters (not that I would have turned the light on this year anyway), so I've never felt the need to make a Halloween wreath. I usually just keep the autumn wreath I made a couple of years ago up from September to December and call it good.

Well, this year, while standing in a socially distant line at JoAnn's to purchase materials for a different project, I just happened to glance to my right at a shelf of Halloween bits and bobs that were all on a deep discount. I've been crafting like crazy the past few months and my mind immediately began to whirl. I picked up three different types of deco mesh (orange sparkly, black and white striped and a black and silver web) and a masquerade mask and started to build the wreath in my head, knowing that I had purple mesh in my stash. Once I was home, I got to work!

I had an old straw wreath that was falling apart and begging for some love, so I bound it back together with some black ribbon I had laying around and then wrapped the whole thing in the black and white striped deco mesh. I'm a big believer in being able to dismantle and reassemble projects if needed, so I just pinned the mesh into place with some long straight pins.

To make the bow, I layered the purple under the the orange sparkly mesh and topped it with the black and sliver web-like mesh for some classier Halloween-y vibes. The bow is also pinned into place.

To top it all off, I pinned the mask (using the ribbon straps that came attached to the mask) in the center of the wreath for some added drama.

And done! It took me maybe 2 hours to make this, since I had to rebind the straw wreath (and clean up the incredible mess that it made). It only hung for the day of Halloween, but that was fine by me. I'll probably use it again next year!