Fall is HERE!

The story goes…I went into Homegoods looking for something (ANYTHING! Furniture, throws, cupcake liners…you never know what you might find!)…and all the fall decor was out! Glass pumpkins, wheat bunches, orange and brown and black goods a-plenty! I didn’t need any of it. In fact, I hadn’t even gotten my own fall decor boxes out of the attic yet when what did my wantering eye see?!!!! An adorable wreath, wheat based with lots of 3″ pumpkins evenly disbursed. Oh honey! You are mine! Into my cart she went and around the rest of the store we rode.

Nothing else caught my eye, so I headed to the check out isle (‘cuz it really is another isle FILLED with temptations…you know 50% of the time you throw in a pack of cute cocktail napkins or another waterbottle for the sports bag…’cuz it’s CUTE! So bad!). I stopped and had a moment with my wreath. I asked the question I always ask of my Homegoods purchases: Do I REEEALLY need you? And for $40, no, I did not need it. In fact I knew I already had a fall wreath that I could “freshen” up for half the cost. OH YES I COULD!

Joann Fabrics, here I come!

Where does one buy faux fall foliage? Why Joann’s of course! And it happens to be in the same shopping center as our Homegoods! Nice, right? What else is nice? The fall stuff was all 50% off! Score!!!

How to arrange

To start, I played around with where to place the white flowers. Next, I layered in the two sizes of white pumpkins. Why the flowers AND 2 sizes of pumpkins, you ask? Rule of three!!! I thought it would add interest to the final composition by having 3 different sized white objects vs. just using the small variety that the store wreath had done.

Some details

I had to add some wire to the bottom of the big pumpkins (like the small pumpkins had for displaying) but it was easy. The pumpkins were made of styrofoam so all I did was: poke with wire, hot glue into the foam and voila! A pumpkin ready to be stuck in the arrangement!After getting the pumpkins and flower bunches in just the right place, playing with layout and balance, I just kind of hooked the sticks into the frame of the original wreath, weaving in the faux foliage to give it stability. No glue required! How awesome is that?

A Trick!

Those small pumpkins didnt start off pure white! They were more yellow which was NOT the look I was going for. So, what did I do? Got out my paint and a brush and painted those little suckers the color I wanted them to be! (control-freak: YES!) 😁

Why not spray-paint?

I decided to not spraypaint for two reasons:

1. I wanted to keep the stems brown. and

2. I thought the brushstrokes would add a nice texture and would allow a little if the under-color (yellow) to peak through.

The Best Part: The Bow!

I have a friend, Julie, who always says at Bunko, “I know Melissa would know how to tie a beautiful bow for a wreath. Will you teach me?!”. Well, this is for you, Julie!!!

1. Measure how long you want the bow to hang.2. Gather at that point and pin it with a straight pin to mark your spot AND keep it bunched. 3. Decide how big you want your loops.4. Repeat on the opposite side.5. Gather at that spot. 6. Wrap your flower wire around the bunch, and twist the two wire ends together. 7. To cover that bunchy area, make a smaller loop over the center taking your ribbon from the bottom of the bow, looping up and bringing the fabric back down over the center bunch (where the wire is). 8. Wrap wire ends a round both sides of the ribbon, pinch wire together inside that little loop & twist them together. 9. To finish, clean up those ribbon ends! For wide ribbon I like to cut the ends to an inverted point. 10. Fold in half.11. Start at the point of the ribbon’s edge and cut a diagonal to the folded side of the ribbon.12. Repeat on both sides and voila! You have a beautiful bow to attach to your wreath on your front door!