What's This? My Easy DIY Jack Skellington Wreath!

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:

Right-click to embiggen, then download to your desktop.

I had to stretch and smooth the vinyl as I applied it around the curve of the ornament, but look how cool:

 Seriously, it was glass smooth! Now I want to make more of these.

I quickly discovered hot glue alone wouldn't hold Jack's head to the wreath, since the stretchy fabric would stretch (SHOCKING) and the head would wobble.

So to stabilize it, John added a small screw through the ornament hanger:

 BOOM. Now it's rock-steady.

 I made Jack's bow tie out of thin black craft foam:

I added plastic rhinestone eyes for a little bling.

Pro Tip when dealing with craft foam: if you iron it, it will "seal" the foam, giving it a slight shine and making it much easier to paint! Test your iron temperature on a scrap piece first, though, to make sure it doesn't melt/deform too much.

 Now hot glue the bow tie over the base of the ornament:

To be honest, you could just stop here and have a fabulous Jack wreath. The main reason I added more was just to hide my bad seams inside on the left edge, ha. 

I found several wreaths online decorated with felt pinwheels - just strips of felt rolled together - and decided to make my own version out of craft foam. This couldn't be simpler: just cut thin stripes of foam and roll them up, hot-gluing the ends to hold the shape.

While testing out the placement I decided the thin craft foam was a little too thin for the larger pinwheels, but the thicker stuff looks perfect. Just like a lollipop! 

In fact, I love the way the smaller pinwheel on the right looks like a wrapped candy, so cute!

It took me DAYS to settle on where I wanted everything, but then only a moment to hot glue it all in place.

My final step was adding a wire hanger in the back, so Anna can hang it on the wall or with a wreath hanger.

Now, PHOTO SHOOT TIME!

Aw yeeeeeeah.

I found the "greenery" at Michael's in their Halloween clearance. The leaves had glitter on them, but I was able to wash most of it off.

Oh, and I haven't done this yet myself, but to make this transition into Christmas better you can add a Santa hat & beard on Jack! You could also tack on some extra red-and-white swirls to look like peppermints. Wouldn't that be fun? Granted, it's a little early to be thinking about Christmas. (Just a little.) Still, I think I need to make those to give to Anna at Thanksgiving.

I think it looks best on our white door, but here's a look at the wreath on the bricks in our steampunk room:

I hope this gave you a smile!

As always, if this inspires you to make your own Jack Skellington wreath, then I want to see! Share your pics on the Epbot FB page, or tag me on Instagram.

There's still a LITTLE more Halloween to come, since I'm hoping to get a few cute pictures of our big Ghostbusters set-up when John and I are in costume tomorrow night. The weather looks like it's going to be clear (WOOT) so I'm super excited for it all to come together!

*****

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