Welcome to my happy place of DIY, homemade, homegrown, handmade, nourished & crafted, whole hearted living. Finding magic in the mundane & growing some roots in the process.
This post may contain affiliate links. If you click on a link and purchase an item, I will receive a small commission. For more info, please see my disclosure on my Connect page.
Here’s a little holiday secret, I hate Halloween.
I know, it’s completely un-American but I just really, really don’t like gore, death, darkness, and horror.
My kind of Halloween involves happy kids in cute costumes (like THESE), trick or treating, and then going home to raid the candy stashes while snuggling up to movies like It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Casper, Hocus Pocus, and Young Frankenstein with the hubs.
As much as I love an adrenaline rush and a good adventure, being so scared I pee my pants and have nightmares for weeks just ain’t my bag, baby.
Yup, my favorite kind of Halloween is relatively boring, safe, and fun.
Much to my dismay, I have a 10 year old Harry Potter fanatic who adores Halloween.
She has been begging me for days to make some sort of Halloween decoration for the front door. She told me it didn’t have to be scary and that I didn’t need to spend lots of money. Haha, she knows me well.
With that in mind, I set out to create something fun for her that wouldn’t ick me out every time I walked in the door.
Here’s what I came up with…
To start, I grabbed an berry wreath from my hoard the basement.
The uglier it is, the better.
I sprayed the nasty old thing with some cheap black spray paint I had left over from another project.
While that was drying, I gave the cheap spider a coat of Glitter Blast in Golden Glow.
If you are following along on Instagram, you saw that I flipped the spider on it’s back to spray first. I like to spray the back of my projects first and then flip to the front side to paint because that keeps the front clean and protected from mistakes that may happen when turning the item over. Most of the time you don’t see the back, so if it was to get smudged you wouldn’t cry. After the back dried, I flipped it over and gave the front a nice coat of paint.
At this point you can unintentionally scare the heck out of your friends on social media, sorry Heather… sorta.
After painting, I let both pieces dry overnight.
Then, once the wreath and spider were nice and dry, I started on the baker’s twine web.
I tied off an end of the baker’s twine to the wreath then took it to the opposite side, tying it off there. I repeated this until I had the framework of the web. Next, I made the inner part of the web by wrapping and gluing more baker’s twine around the framework. I started near the center and worked my way out, sort of playing with it until it looked how I wanted.
Once the web was complete, I hot glued on the spider then the gems.
At that point I added the glittered branches I got from the Dollar Store, but you could add those before you did the web.
It really doesn’t matter that much when they get glued in.
I cut apart the glittered picks from the Dollar Store and glued them around the outside of the wreath. I did this to add some extra fullness as my wreath was in a very sparse, sad state. If I were to do it again, I would probably add a few more pieces for even more umph, and maybe even some black feathers just for fun.
I added the cut branch pieces by flipping the wreath over, bending the wire on the pick to lay the direction of the wreath, and then hot gluing.
Once you have your web constructed, your spider and gems on, and your extra fluff added, you are done!
Unless you feel like dousing the whole thing in more glitter, I won’t judge.
After that extra dose of glitter, I hung it up.
I’m thinking the porch needs some paper bats hanging from the ceiling to finish off our fun. Those will be going up shortly, but here’s what the porch looks like right now anyway.
The scarecrow is a nod to my daughters’ Wizard of Oz costume theme.
They are pretty excited.
I’m loving all the different pumpkins!
I got a few gourds from Trader Joes in Salt Lake City, a couple big pumpkins from Tractor Supply, and then today I had an unexpected delivery from a sweet boy named Talon.
Talon and his dad (my brother’s father-in-law) grow a big pumpkin patch full of beautiful pumpkins every year. Talon’s dad uses the pumpkins to teach him not only how to work, but how to handle money as Talon sells his harvest each fall. These pumpkins are something special. Talon is a fantastic pumpkin grower, a rad mountain biker, and has Down Syndrome.
My surprise delivery, care of Talon’s mom by way of my mama, warmed my heart and brought a great big smile to my face.
Thank you T-dawg for your kindness.
I think you are pretty awesome.
Spider success…
Bee is thrilled with our DIY Halloween Wreath and I’m happy that it doesn’t give me the heebees.
I have to admit, throw some glitter on an arachnid and they become kinda cute!
What am I saying!
Hey, at least it’s dead.
That spider still gives me the creeps!
I love your wood beams. What a fun porch to decorate!
Before it was glittered, it freaked me out a couple times!