DIY T-Shirt Scrap Halloween Wreath {from the vault}

A T-Shirt Scrap Wreath is the perfect way to use up those old shirts...

and give them a festive touch!

I originally posted this about a year ago. I decided to retake some photos of it again and repost, since it's one of my faves.

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I'm not a huge Halloween person. I basically decorate for fall without being holiday specific...so it can take me right through Thanksgiving. However, I thought it might be fun to create an actual Halloween wreath. Since I'm not that into this holiday, I didn't want to spend too much on this wreath...so t-shirt scraps it was!

I found several t-shirt wreaths on Pinterest, but ended up kind of doing my own thing on this one. I didn't want a floppy wreath...I wanted it full and fluffy. I did also use about a yard of fabric that was leftover from last year {not sure why I bought it...but it's been in the scrap pile for a long time}. I used it to tie all of the colors together and add one other texture to the wreath. I also used the mesh for a bow {I already had it on hand...I buy it when it's on sale and use it for gift wrapping}. I purchased the "BOO" pick and pulled out the wire {it was 1/2 off at HobLob, making it $1}. I also purchased the wreath form {it was $2.99 at HobLob and I used my 40% coupon on it}. So, my total out-of-pocket cost was less than $3 for the whole thing! Woohoo!

I noticed others who've made a similar wreath purchased their t-shirts from thrift stores or other places. With my husband being a principal and the fact that I used to be a graphic designer at an actual t-shirt printing shop, we literally have bajillions of t-shirts on hand {it's not normal, I tell you}.

I basically used all of the parts of the shirt that I could, excluding anything with print on it.

This is roughly the size of strips that I cut out to use on the wreath.

I used three t-shirts {one black, one orange and one purple} and the additional yard of fabric, like I mentioned above. It took a couple of hours to cut my strips...and I used pinking shears for all of them {I have a thing for texture}.

Then I just started tying the scraps onto the wreath...pulling all of their "tails" to the front of the wreath. I also alternated the colors of my scraps. It took a little over an hour of tying to get all of the scraps on there.

This is what the back of the wreath looks like when finished {the numbers and horribly illustrated lines showing you the different wire rungs}. The outer wire rung of the wreath {which I was originally going to leave empty since it didn't show} was filled in with only fabric scraps...just so I could get a lot of the fabric showing. I used every bit of fabric/t-shirts...which is why the outer wire was slightly skimpy. But, that doesn't show from the front at all.

I pulled a length of the wire mesh through the wreath wire rungs and tied a bow on the front. I hot glued the "BOO" onto the bow.

I was really pleased with how fluffy the wreath turned out. I think the addition of the fabric, along with the shorter length of my strips, helped this not to be overly-floppy like scrap wreaths can be.