Halloween Wreath

Halloween Wreath

Halloween is coming fast and this is the best time to be crafting up some fun Halloween decorations.  You'll find most of the goodies on sale and clearance at the big box stores.  This is actually from the FabLab collection at JoAnn's.  Lot's of cool stuff in that collection.  

I picked this up at JoAnn's for a zesty price.  Zesteeeeeeee!  haaaaaa  (means super crazy Jen cheap). 

Other than it being an adorable wooden wreath, it provided me the ability to be completely imaginative in how I finished this.  

My Painting Tip - Because I have Experienced Both Failure and Success...

Look - if I can't talk to you about my failures and then my successes ( as a result of such failures), then who will?  I'm the Reigning Queen of the "Turn Around Success" - meaning I've flopped and botched   then figured out a much better approach.  

I do have a few painting tips when doing multi-colored projects that involve black….and I believe I am now qualified to tell you what works and what doesn't since I tried multiple painting techniques.  

Idea One - Painting The Entire Base Black

   Like I said above,  I tried a few different painting techniques.  I originally thought I would paint the whole project black as a base and add color on top of the black.  I decided the bold acrylic colors I chose did not really look great painted over black.  They sort of got muddied looking and needed several thick gobby layers to achieve a nice fresh bright clean look.  I do not have leisure time to babysit this wreath and paint, paint, paint the same colored layer over and over.  Fortunately I only sampled this technique on one of the words in the wreath.  

Idea Two - Painting Selective Words

So painting the entire wreath in black was out.  Boot - bad idea for me.  

Next idea was to paint the words and let them dry before going back and adding more coats.  For example I was going to paint the entire wreath with my colors choices, let dry and then repaint with more coats.  

Not a well thought out approach because that mean I needed multiple paint brushes or a thorough brush cleaning process.  

Shameful admission time…I must hang my head in woeful shame to tell the world that I am neglectful and lazy about cleaning brushes.  They are crusty and hard.  Why I even keep them is a mind boggler.   As a result, I have maybe two brushes that have soft, supple moveable bristles.

(Note to fellow crafters…never let me borrow a brush).   

Plus sometimes I do not approach a crafting project with thoughtful clarity.  I know…you want to scream "Nooooooooooo, not you, Jen!" but yes, me.  It's true.  

Idea Three - the Keeper

Now I'm about an hour into my project switching directions and pondering choices but I have a rock solid idea for plodding forth.  

 Decide which words I wanted to be orange - and paint all those.  Wait a few minutes in between coats - but complete the orange words before moving on to the next color.  I opted to do the black words last.   

This technique was perfect because I didn't need to wash the brushes a gazillion times to accommodate another color change.  

Finishing Touches

My finishing touches are rather simple.

• A small black crow that I also grabbed from JoAnn's.  
• Nice glittery bow with black tulle mixed with the bow. 
• The glitter bat was from my stash as was the green gems for the skeleton smile. 
• Stickles Glitter glue in Diamond to make the colors of the paint pop
• Sparkly green floral berries glued to the bow as accents.    

Thanks for stopping by.  Have fun with all your Halloween projects.