Halloween Wreaths… I love them. I’m the girl that has a wreath hanging on the front and side doors of my house year round. It should come as no surprise that Halloween wreaths are my absolute favorite. One problem is that I like so many…. I see them in stores, I see them in catalogs, I see them in Etsy shops, and I want them all… but guess what? I have never bought one. Why? Because every time I fall in love with a wreath, the crafter in me says “I can make that!”…. but I never do. I’m sure many of you can relate!! This year I was determined to change that!…. the result? This Halloween Bat Wreath!
A few years ago, I did actually make a wreath for my front door. It was a very basic wreath. While I didn’t reinvent the wheel, I was still happy with the end result. It was that typical grapevine wreath with moss and a raven. There’s a full tutorial on making one of those Raven Wreaths in case you’re looking for a quick win. That Raven wreath has been hanging on my front door for a few years now. A person like me, who pretty much DIY’s for a living, and is obsessed with Halloween, should not have the same basic wreath hanging on her door for years on end. Shame on me!!
A couple of weeks ago, I began the process of pulling all of my Halloween bins from storage. When I came upon my Raven Wreath, I immediately hung it on my side door, leaving my front door bare. I was going to force myself to make a new one! Pinterest here I come. Surprisingly, of the thousands and thousands of Halloween wreaths on Pinterest, none were quite what I wanted. I did however find a wreath made entirely of paper butterflies. I was enamored by it. Now, you know I am not about to make a colorful butterfly wreath for Halloween… but it certainly was great inspiration! The eternal Vampire in me knew exactly what to do instead… Bats!
Rarely do my initial ideas turn out to be my final ones. My projects have a way of morphing as I work on them. So, after a fair amount of playing with random supplies… I landed on a black grapevine wreath, with black decorative branches, faux flowers for a touch of romance, and an assortment of paper bats.
While I am typically partial to “All Black Everything”, solid black bats on a solid black wreath might be beautiful up close, but you’d literally need to be standing at my front door to see them. To overcome this, I opted to use a variety of metallic decorative papers, as well as mirrored cardstock in various shades of black and grey. I thought the different shades of color would give depth to the all of the bats. I also loved the idea of some of the bats having reflective properties. When I found the mirrored cardstock.. it was EXACTLY what I was looking for!! Although, I don’t have a nighttime image of the wreath… candle light or moonlight bouncing off of some of those mirrored bats is a beautiful sight!
OK… so here’s how I did it….
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Supplies:
- Black Grapevine Wreath (or a Natural Grapevine Wreath
, painted Black)
- Artificial Black Halloween Branches – I bought mine in a craft store, but these Artificial Branches
are similar
- Metallic Paper
- Black Mirrored Cardstock
- Gun Metal Mirrored Cardstock
- Cricut or Printer
- Black Gloss Spray Paint
- Black Sharpie or Paint Pen
- Faux Flowers
- E6000
, painted Black)
are similar
Preparing the Bats…
I drew two styles of bats… and arranged a variety of sizes onto an 8.5 x 11 artboard. Feel free to create your own, but I’m going to save you the trouble…. my bat collage is available to you.
This Bat Silhouette File contains 2 image pages…. Page 1 is Cricut ready, Page 2 is Print/Cut ready.
I used a Cricut machine to cut my bats, but if you don’t have a cutting machine, you can certainly cut the bats out by hand. For this wreath, I cut a single sheet of bats from three metallic papers, and two mirrored ones… five pages in all.
To add a bit of dimension to the metallic bats, I traced the outer edge with a black sharpie, and added veins to a handful.
For the mirrored bats…. I had to do something about the backs. They were white, and since I planned on the bats being three dimensional, the back would show. Using a black gloss spray paint, I painted the backs of each of the mirrored bats. Use caution with this step… if you lay the bats out, and just start spraying, the force of the spray paint, will either blow the bats away, or flip them over and you’d accidentally spray the front. Instead, spray very slowly, and directly down onto each bat.
Because I can’t leave well enough alone, I decided to add a bit of black to the Gun Metal bats. Using the spray paint, I gave a quick spray just across the top of each bat. It created a cool ombre effect, which I loved.
Lastly, I folded each of the bats in half, creating a center fold line. This would make the bats appear 3 dimensional once attached to the wreath.
Completing the Wreath…
Break the branch apart into smaller pieces… depending on the kind you buy, you may need wire cutters.
Insert the branches around the edge of the wreath. In some cases, the branches will easily insert securely into the grapevine. If not, use E6000 to secure them.
Next, I opted to add some flowers to the wreath. I felt like it needed the softness of a floral element. Initially, I picked out some stems at a craft store, and was planning to snip the flowers off, and secure them into the grapevine. But, I happened to come upon some Clip-on Flower Christmas Ornaments. Not only did I like the color, but the attached clips made it incredibly easy to attach to the grapevine. Win-win!
Last, but not least… the bats. For this, you kind of just have to dive in and start gluing the bats on. Typically, I’d run a bead of E6000 along the back center fold line of the bat, and hold in place for a couple of minutes (I love the end result of this glue, but it does not immediately stick, so this step can be a little time consuming). I glued a few on, and then just started filling in the spaces. I attempted to alternate colors, and paper finish when I could. My initial plan was to fill the entire wreath with bats, but as I would step back to figure out where my next bat would go, there came a point when I realized I liked the wreath exactly as is. So, I put the glue down.
And that’s it! Pat on my back for finally DIY’ing a new Halloween wreath! Excited to see something new at my front door this Halloween season!!
If you’re a fan of bats as much as I am, you’ll love these Black Bat Pancakes or the Chocolate Bat Lollipops as a tasty treat. And for some more DIY Bat fun…. try your hand at this Vampire Bat Trinket Box, or the Antique Bat TV Tray!
Pat on the back indeed, my friend. As always, I adore your creation and thanks for the download! Good luck at the expo. I hope it all goes well! Sx
Thanks Sue!!! xo
Thanks for this great tutorial. I love the wreath and can’t wait to make one for myself. I am also obsessed with Halloween and love your projects! Thanks so much!
Thanks so much Deborah!! Good luck with your wreath!!