Easy Fall Leaf Wreath (No More Awkward Mini Pumpkins)

When it comes to decorating for fall, I often skip over it and go straight to Christmas. Sure, we will buy a few of those decorative mini pumpkins and place them awkwardly around the apartment until they start to turn to mush, but that is about it.

It hasn’t helped that the past few years I’ve worked in jobs that have holiday specific products and often am surrounded by holiday items starting in August. Or, in the case of The Nutcracker, all year long (Seattle people, you should see it; I promise you will love it. If you don’t, then you are probably some Christmas-hating Grinch, and I’m not sure why you went in the first place #allTheThingsYouCannotSay).

It is still like that in the world of magazine publishing, the December issue was finished before Halloween, but it’s not as intense, and I actually noticed it is fall this year.

Except, I didn’t know what to make.

Seattle has been having some strange summers (i.e., warm) the past few years, but in return, the trees have been all sorts of bright red and orange. Which is a nice change from the green to dead to compost mush on the ground we used to have this time of year.

That’s when I realized I should make a wreath. Leaves are easy for almost anyone to get (except maybe if you live in the desert? Do they have leaves there or just cacti? FOR THE LOVE OF NOT STABBING YOURSELF, DO NOT MAKE THIS FALL LEAF WREATH USING CACTI!) and you don’t have to paint them like I did, and you could also just tie them to some bakers twine for a garland. If you are at lazy level 5, you don’t even need to tie them; you could attach them with some cute washi tape (which I totally considered doing).

I didn’t make a solid layer of paint on the leaves because I wanted them to have that gold leafed look. Also, some of my leaves were curled, but I didn’t mind that. The rules for this project are so non-existent, I don’t know why you are still reading this and not making this fall leaf wreath already. Oh, right, probably because I haven’t actually given you the instructions yet.

SUPPLIES FOR FALL LEAF WREATH

• Leaves
• Gold paint (optional)
• Paint brush (I used a #6 filbert and it made painting the leaves super easy. For those that don’t know, the filbert brush is the one that looks like Vanilla Ice’s hair in the late 80s.*)
• String (not optional)
• Stick or something else to tie the leaves to (I used this.)

DIRECTIONS FOR FALL LEAF WREATH

1. Find leaves and let them dry.
2. Paint them.
3. Tie/tape/glue them to some sort of thin, horizontal object, or string.
4. Hang.
5. Keep it away from open flames.

*You don’t have to use that particular type of brush, I was just really proud of that Vanilla Ice joke.

xx