I found the perfect transitional craft to say goodbye to Halloween, you guys: a Nightmare Before Christmas wreath!
I made this for my friend Anna (the one who threw that amazeballs Game of Thrones dinner last April), since she loves Jack Skellington. Since I'm terrible at designing wreaths, I found about 10 different designs I liked on Pinterest, then combined my favorite parts to make my own variation.
I worked on this for over a week because I'm so indecisive (just me?), but the actual construction only takes a few hours. Here's what you need:
- foam wreath ring
- one large plastic Christmas ornament from the dollar store
- white spray primer
- half a yard of stretchy black-and-white fabric (I found this reversible print at JoAnns)
- both thick & thin craft foam sheets in black and white
- a few black leaves/twigs for garnish (Check the Halloween clearance)
Cover your wreath by setting it on the fabric, then cutting slits in the center and stretching and pinning each triangular section back, like this:
Be careful not to cut the slits too deep - like I did - or else the cuts could show from the front - like mine did. Fortunately I only had 2 slits that showed, so I was able to cover those later with spriggy bits.
Once you've stretched & pinned the fabric in place, go back and hot glue it all down, trimming off the excess fabric as you go.
Ta-daa! My fabric-covered wreath.
NOTE: If your fabric isn't stretchy, then you can cut it into strips and wrap the wreath like a mummy.
Next, spray a primer coat over your Christmas ornament. You can follow this up with a top coat if you like, but don't make it shiny; Jack's head looks better matte.
You can easily paint on Jack's features with black craft paint, but I decided to again put my Cricut to work:
I found a Jack face that was close to what I wanted, then adjusted the eyes in Photoshop to make them a little friendlier. (They were more narrowed in the original.) Here's my graphic, in case you'd like to use it:
