Dollar Store DIY Fall Squash Wreath

I was perusing my Southern Living magazine and saw a really neat looking fall wreath (pictured at the right).  It didn't look like it would be that hard to make.  Just a foam wreath, a few squash, and some moss to fill in the blank areas.  When I considered the cost of the squash, which last I looked was about $0.50 each, and the wreath, which was $14, I realized this wreath could cost a pretty penny.  I decided to see what I could find at our local Dollar Tree.


Here's my Dollar Tree interpretation of the Southern Living squash wreath (which, by the way, only cost me $13.69...less than the cost of the foam wreath!).  While I admit my version really looks nothing like the Southern Living version, I still like the way it turned out.  Even better, I like the price!




Dollar Store DIY Fall Squash Wreath

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NOTE:  All of these items with exception of the floral ring were purchased at my local Dollar Tree.  The wooden floral ring was purchased at Michaels.  Priced at $4.49, I used a 40% off one item at Michaels to get the ring for $2.69.

Supplies:
1 Wooden floral ring
1 Roll 2-2 1/2 inch wide ribbon
35-40 Styrofoam squash (come in packs of 5)
1-2 packages Reindeer moss
1 package Raffia ribbon (optional)

Supplies I already had:
Hot glue gun/glue sticks
Mod Podge (or cheap version of it)

1.  Begin by looping your ribbon around the top of your wreath to create a hanger.  Make it long enough to hang at about eye level on your door.

2.  Lay out your squash around the wreath ring so you know where you want each squash.  Alternate colors and types of squash so the squash is varied throughout.

Using the hot glue gun, place glue on the bottom of the squash and then press the squash onto the wooden wreath ring.  Hold in place until it doesn't move.

3.  Once you have glued down all of your squash, you will add the moss in the blank spaces where any of the wooden wreath shows through.  I couldn't access these areas with my glue gun because it has such a stubby tip on it.  I used a foam brush and my own version of Mod Podge that I made for cheap (just equal parts white school glue and water!!).

I brushed my homemade Mod Podge in between the squash onto the wooden ring and pressed moss onto the wood form.  You may have to use a lot of Mod Podge to make the moss stick.  Don't worry about blank spots along the edges because you will go back with the glue gun to fill those in.

Continue around the squash, filling in all the blank areas with moss.



4.  Time to fill in any areas where the moss wouldn't stick.  I don't know how yours will fare but my wreath had a lot of blank spaces.  All of my inner and outer edges of the ring didn't have any moss on them.  They looked like this:

To fix this, just go around the edges with your hot glue gun.  Squeeze glue from your hot glue gun onto the edges and then press moss on it.  It covers the edges nicely and helps the moss stick better than the Mod Podge.  

Here's the finished wreath just hanging off my kitchen counter.  I had to shake it quite a bit to get a lot of the loose moss off.  It's a bit like working with glitter.

Here is what my finished wreath looked like on my front door.  I thought the middle of the wreath was really big and a bit blank so using raffia, I added some squash to hang down into the middle of the wreath.  I'm not sure if I really like it yet.  I think I'll be getting my husband to cut a pumpkin shape with some spare wood we have so I can paint a pumpkin for the center of my wreath.  It would also be really cute with just our family initial painted to match.

I'm also not sure about using the ribbon to hang it.  While I like the look of it, it's not that easy for me to hang a wreath like this.  Instead, I took the hanger down and put it into a bow to hide hang the wreath on.  This is how I have it hanging on my door now (even though this picture is on my wall!).