Halloween is so much fun, but this year I decided to change things up a bit and decorate our front porch for Dia de los Muertos instead. Celebrated on November 1st and 2nd, this holiday is equal parts mourning and celebration. Dia de los Muertos is a colorful and joyful, laughter-filled tribute to the memory of family and friends that have passed away.
You can see all the pictures of my Dia de los Muertos porch decor over on the Cost Plus World Market
Discover blog, but today I wanted to share the quick tutorial for the simple wreaths that I made, using the wood skull masks provide to me by World Market.
I was compensated by Cost Plus World Market for the porch decor post that I wrote for the Discover blog. This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.
WREATH SUPPLIES
Silk Flowers
Scissors
Hot Glue
Flat Head Thumbtack
WREATH TUTORIAL
I love classic black and white stripes because they go with everything! For my Dia de los Muertos wreaths, I picked black and white striped ribbon to balance the bright colors in the masks and flowers.
Begin by unraveling a roll of black and white striped ribbon and hot gluing one end to a foam wreath form. Where you glue the first piece of ribbon will become the "back" of the wreath.
Wrap the ribbon around the wreath form, overlapping just enough that no foam shows through.
One roll of ribbon will likely not be long enough to cover the entire wreath. As you get to the end of the first roll of ribbon, glue the ribbon to the “back” of the wreath, and then trim off any excess.
Then begin a new roll of ribbon, matching the stripes up with the end of
the prior piece, and secure it with hot glue.
Continue wrapping the wreath until the entire foam form is covered in ribbon. Then cut the ribbon, and glue the end to the back of the wreath.
Next, use wire cutters to clip the flowers from their
stems.
Apply a liberal amount of hot glue to the back of a each flower and
attach it to the wreath. The glue dries quickly, so work one flower at a time. Attach the first flower to the center of the bottom of the wreath, and then continue adding flowers to cover about 1/3 of the wreath of the front of the wreath.
All that is left now is to hang the
wood Dia de los Muertos mask in the center of the wreath. To do so, I pushed a flathead thumbtack through the ribbon and into the foam at the top center of the
wreath. I then looped the jute on the top of the mask around the thumbtack. Careful not to burn myself, I placed a large dab
of hot glue under the head of the thumbtack and pressed the thumtack down, securing the jute under it.
Then I liberally covered the top of the thumbtack and the area around it with hot glue and allow to dry for a minute. This prevents the weight of the mask from pulling the thumbtack out of place.
Finally, I attached a piece of red ribbon to the top of
the wreath, adjacent to the jute, using hot glue. Then I looped the ribbon around the
wreath a few times, wrapping to the other side of the jute to cover it.
Once both the jute and thumbtack were covered by the red ribbon, I tied a knot at the top of the wreath, positioning the knot so that the original, raw {glued} end of the ribbon is not visible.
Want to save this tutorial for later? Be sure to pin the image below. Then head over to Cost Plus World Market's Discover blog to see how the rest of our Dia de los Muertos front porch came together. My kids are obsessed with the large black and white skull rug, I love the lantern full of flowers, and the neighbors all comment on how much they like the dancing skeleton pillow!
Labels: craft, crafts, craftyanthology, Dia de los Muertos, DIY, Halloween, seasonal, tutorial
