Halloween Wreath with Felt and Ribbon

Don't ask me why, but I was inspired to make a Halloween wreath in late Spring.  Chalk it up to Pinterest overload, I guess.  Side note: Pinterest has also given me a little craft ADD to the point where I have 3 or 4 projects going on at a time.  Anyway, this was one that I managed to complete (even though it took me a couple of days and a few projects later).

Here's my finished wreath:

Materials:

18" flat, round wreath form
1.5 sheets of felt in 4 colors
3 colors of ribbon
wooden letters
Lots of hot glue

First, I cut my felt into 5"x1" strips with my rotary cutter.  I cut 5" pieces of ribbon too.  I tied them into knots as I went, and placed them in a shoe box so they wouldn't get all over when I was working on other projects. :)

Then, I laid my form out and started hot gluing these knots on randomly. I just eyeballed it to find a "pattern" and thickness that I liked.

In the future, if I used this same technique on this same form, I would wrap the form with black (or whatever color was appropriate) ribbon to hide the form so I wouldn't have to worry about any showing through. 

I coninued the wreath in this way, all the way around.  And, here's what it looked like after gluing the pieces all over:

(Please ignore the messy background- that's a byproduct of my craft ADD).  If the form was smaller, like 12" or 14", I might have left it like this.  But, I felt like it was calling for something in the middle.  I brainstormed for a while, and decided to get some wooden letters spelling BOO. They came unfinished, so the first thing I did was paint them.  I used regular acrylic paint in purple, orange, and lime green.  Then, I added polka dots using the back of a dried pen in a contrasting color.

From here, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.  I knew I wanted them in the center of the wreath, but they weren't big enough to stretch across on their own.  I decided to cut long strips of black felt and have the letters hang from the top of the wreath.  I doubled the strip over and knotted the loose ends. I wasn't worried about the knot showing, since thats how I made the rest of the wreath, so I hot glued the knotted end of the felt to the top of the letter, like this:

I attached the folded end of the strip to the back of the wreath form in varying lengths with more hot glue.  And here it is again:

I like the way it came out, even if it wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I started. This technique was so easy, and I think it lends itself well to other holidays/ occasions.  I have some other wreaths in mind in this style, but it'll have to wait until I try all the other ideas on my Pinterest craft board.  If you'd like to see what I have on my list to do, check out my Pinterest board DIY and Crafts- To Try.  Find it here:

http://pinterest.com/lalandry925/diy-crafts-to-try/