Persia Lou

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Dia de los Muertos Wreath

*This post originally appeared on Eighteen25 as part of their Spooktacular September. This post also includes affiliate links. Thanks for supporting Persia Lou!

make your own dia de los muertos inspired wreath
Last year my Halloween decor was all black and white, and I really liked it. But this year, I have been really inspired by Dia de los Muertos, which meant I had to let some color in. My projects this year have all been inspired by the colorful sugar skulls and ofrendas used to celebrate the holiday. Another Dia de los Muertos symbol is the marigold, the pretty organge flowers used to decorate altars made for loved ones, so I made my own version of marigold tissue paper flowers as the base for my wreath.

This may be a little weird, but it was a stretch for me to incorporate orange into my Halloween/Fall decor because I’m really not big on orange for the most part. So I incorporated some light pinks, yellows, and corals into the flowers, and I really like the way they all look together.

To make this wreath, you will need:

I started off my making whole pile of pretty tissue paper flowers in shades of orange and yellow.
To make your tissue paper into rectangles. Five by seven inch rectangles make a nice medium-sized flower. Create some bigger and smaller flowers to get a variety of sizes in your wreath.
You will need six sheets of tissue paper for each flower – 3 each of two colors. Stack the six sheets together alternating colors.
Then, fold up the stack using an accordion fold. Twist a piece of wire around the middle.
Clip the ends into a scalloped shape.
Carefully separate the layers of tissue paper to create your flower. Find the center piece of tissue paper, twist it together, and clip it off to form the flower’s center.
When you have a nice pile of flowers (I ended up using 22 flowers), attach them to your wreath form using the wires.

To embellish the wreath, I added a black and white bow and a little felt sugar skull. I used some sugar skull cookie cutters I have to help me make my felt sugar skull, but you can find all kinds of sugar skull design inspiration online.

 This was my first time using puffy paint since probably fifth grade, and it was everything I remembered it to be. Seriously though – it was fun.
I made a whole bunch of these little guys – colorful versions as well as just black and white – and picked a favorite for the wreath. They would totally make a cool garland too. (In fact, I made one! You can see it here.)
 Finally, use hot glue to attach the bow and sugar skull to the wreath. Then, just hang and enjoy!
 
What do you all think? Are you Dia de los Muertos design fans too?

Alexis Middleton Filed Under: Celebrate

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  4. Katie Nathey says

    I love that you used cookie cutters to create the skulls and this wreath is so pretty! I generally don't decorate much for Halloween, but I would definitely hang this up!