I Did it Again...

Yes, I officially have wreath making fever. Especially Day of the Dead wreath making fever. This is my latest creation. This one is available for purchase on Etsy , or you could always check-out my DIY tutorial and one of your own.

DIY Day of the Dead Wreath

Halloween is still yet a month away, but it's almost time to start thinking of decorating our home for the Halloween holiday. Instead of the usual witches and ghosts, I thought I would take some inspiration from our friends in Mexico and do a Day of the Dead themed decor.
For those that are unaware of the Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico, it is basically a day that celebrates the previous lives of the dead. Graves of loved ones are decorated with flowers, ornate candy skulls and candles. It's really quite beautiful and people pour their hearts and souls into the memory of their loved ones. You can read more about the tradition here.

Today I will teach you how to make your own Day of the Dead Wreath. Even better, all items for this wreath can be found at the dollar store.

Supplies you will need:
Glue gun and glue
Foam ring -found in the floral department
black crepe paper streamers
plastic skeletons
white paint
paint brushes
scissors 
assorted flowers
ribbon

Begin by adding some hot glue to the back of your wreath form. Them start wrapping your crepe paper around your wreath.

I added a dot of glue every so often to help keep the crepe paper in place.  I wrapped the wreath a total of two times. Make sure to stretch the crepe paper slightly to get a tighter fit.

Finish the wrapping of the wreath with a small amount of glue on the back of the wreath.

This is what the wrapped wreath will look like.

Next, we will begin work on the sugar skeletons.





You want to cut the head of the skeleton from it's body and leave enough of a stem so that you can easily press the skeleton head into your wreath.

Paint your skeleton heads white. Bonus if you find already white skeleton heads since you may be able to skip this step.
I used acrylic white paint. For an even stronger bond, I would suggest using white paint especially designed for painting plastic.

When the white paint has fully dried, apply your surface design. See the end of this post for sugar skull painting inspiration.
I again used acrylic paint and a little pen and ink.
Let your skulls dry completely. While we wait, we can start on adding a hanging ribbon to our wreath.



Here I added the hanging ribbon for my wreath. This is not a dollar store ribbon, I used what I had handy, but the dollar store does have some ribbon available.
I start by wrapping the ribbon around the top of the wreath and then making a large loop at the top. Tie a knot around your loop.

This is what your wreath should look like. I next added a bow to the top of the wreath by tying it around the knot I just made in the picture above.



Now it's time to position our skulls. I begun by finding the center of my wreath and placing one skull in the center.
I found the easiest way to place your skulls on your wreath was to make a hole with your scissors or the back point of a paint brush and press it into the position you want your skull on the wreath.
Add a little hot glue to the stem of your skull and press into the hole you just made in your wreath. Do this with all three of your skulls.
Next, I laid my silk flowers out loosely on my wreath to get an idea of how I would like them arranged.
The silk flowers I used were also from what I had on hand, but they sell silk flowers at the dollar store as well.  Look for bright colors. Reds, yellows, pinks and oranges look great.
Now that I know how I would like my flowers arranged, it's time to place my flowers on my wreath.
Here I used the back tip of a paintbrush to make a hole to place my flowers.
Make sure that the ends of your flowers are relatively short. You don't want extra stem piercing through the back of your wreath.
Add a little hot glue to the stem of the silk flower and stick the flower in your wreath. Do this will all of your silk flowers.

And here is the completed Day of the Dead wreath.



Here are some Day of the Dead inspirations to help you in creating your own wreath.








Who Doesn't Like Flying Bunnies?

I have for you today a little nursery art inspiration. I think a lot of nursery designs are just kind of overly cutsie. Now I do like me some cute, but sometimes it's just a little too much. Plus why does everything have to match perfectly? (Everything matching perfectly is a pet peeve of mine). Good room design, including nurseries, I think, should coordinate. Not match perfectly.
A room with a little variety in texture, color and art make for a visually interesting room that won't bore your eyes!




This is a nursery idea board that I came up with. Notice how each element  coordinates with one another , yet doesn't match perfectly. Here are the links to the work in my idea board.

 
 
 



Here are some additional items that I think would look great with this room as well.
These original collage paintings are my work and can be found on my Etsy site here and here.

 
 
Or maybe even a wing back chair for the room.
 
 

























Witchy Halloween Ornament and a Website Update

A couple of months ago I decided to try having my own website with blog and shop. I have been trying to find a method that would work best for my business and it seems that the ol' blogger blog was a better fit for me. So I have decided to return to my blog here. You can still find my work at my website at sarahogren.com , but this will be the place for all of my blogging activity. I still have my work on Etsy as well. My apologies for those of you who have been following me back and forth here.

Anyways, I have a new Halloween piece posted in the Etsy shop. It's a Halloween cone with a cute, yet kinda spooky, Victorian witch.  The Witch is a copy of an antique photo that has my drawings over top.


 
The grassy-looking stuff is dried moss. I absolutely love the smell of dried moss. It's very earthy and smells a lot like fresh rain on grass to me.
The cone itself is paper mache that has been painted black and then silver-metallic embossing powder was applied on top. The cone is finished with some cute pumpkins, decorative trim and a black and orange ribbon.
 
I will be posting more new, work over the next few weeks so make sure to stop by the shop and check-out what I have posted.
 
I am also going to be teaching several mixed media collage workshops and jewelry workshops in October out in McHenry, IL.  The class schedule is not quite ready yet, but I will post it here along with instructions on how to take one of my workshops as soon as that information is available.



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