How to Craft the Ultimate Sugar Skull Wreath

Jeff & I happened into a Burlington which recently opened near our home.

What do my wondering eyes peer but a Halloween Wreath with a skull ⬆️⬆️⬆️ and boom, I decided to create my own.

Wreaths aren't something I've ever made nor display outside of Christmas; it was a lot of fun to make, I think there are many more in my future.

1. Paint the Styrofoam Skull

Paint the whole skull with 2 coats of white acrylic paint.

2. Paint Your Sugar Skull Design

I searched DuckDuckGo for Sugar Skull images. The above is my inspiration image.

To achieve the look I free handed and traced some designs onto the Styrofoam skull.

The designs were painted with a combination of paints including several glow-in-the-dark colors.

3. Add Eyeballs (Optional)

Slide round wooden beads onto a skewer, toothpick or cord. Next paint the beads plain white.

Next, thicken the white paint by adding baby powder.

Fill the bead holes with thickened paint so one side is almost overflowing.

Once dry, paint the eyeballs to resemble bloodshot eyes and coat with

glow in the dark paint.

4. Make a Spider (Optional)

I wanted a spider 🕷 in the wreath but didn't have one so I made one. To do this I glued 2 different sized beads together. Make sure not to cover the holes.

I then cut 8 pieces of wire in pairs of two, each pair slightly shorter than the last. I bent the wire to resemble spider legs.

Next, I filled the bead holes with hot glue and then inserted the wire legs into the glue.

I finished by painting the entire piece black with added glow-in-the-dark yellow on the body and glow-in-the-dark neutral on the legs.

5. Place Pool Noodle in Wreath Form

My original plan was to use a metal wreath form I saved from a fresh Christmas wreath but realized I needed something inside the form to hold the flowers.

I trimmed a Dollar Tree pool noodle about 6 inches, put it into the form & taped the ends together with electrical tape & it worked great.

My noodle is orange, I wasn't sure if the color would be an issue so I painted it with one coat of black.

6. Prepare Flowers

Using a combination of leftover Poinsettias and newly purchased Flowers in fall colors, I separated and trimmed them all to size and painted the Poinsettias solid black. I decided to dip the tips of the fall-colored flowers in black and misted them with water to disperse the color.

Next, I hot glued the bloodshot eyes to the centers of the some flowers.

I added alternating glow-in-the-dark paint colors (I used green, orange, pink, yellow, and neutral) to other flower centers.

7. Assemble the Sugar Skull Wreath

Skull: attached by piercing the top of the skull into a portion of the metal wreath form. Hot glue was added for reinforcement.

*Without a metal form, the floral wire could pierce the skull and then wrap around the noodle. Fishing line could be fed through the Styrofoam using a sewing needle and then tied around the noodle.

Flowers: poke into the pool noodle alternating colors, sizes, and shapes until the noodle isn't visible & the desired look is achieved. Add glue as necessary to ensure security.

Spider: glue on top of flowers where it's easily seen

Hook: secure to the back so your awesome work can be displayed for all the enjoy. I cut the strap on a Dollar Tree burlap purse then hot glued a section to the pool noodle.

Webs: create long strings of hot glue back and forth on the front. Paint the glue strings in neutral glow-in-the-dark paint.

Sugar Skull DIY Wreath for Halloween

Hang up and enjoy!

Happy fall and Halloween y'all