Well, there’s not really going to be a post about basement doors this week, and there very nearly was not one about this wreath, either.

Because my plans this week were thwarted at every turn! By non-sleeping babies, overpacked schedules, and uncooperative spray paint.

Here’s what you need to make this wreath:

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*A wreath form of some sort (I bought a styrofoam one from the craft store, but you could use a pool noodle, too. Or at least that’s what I’ve seen people do on the internet. But you need to be able to poke floral pins into it, whatever you use).

* Floral Pins

*black ribbon

*toy snakes. I got mine from the dollar store, but you could get them cheaper on Amazon, it looks like. I used biggish ones, but I think a whole mess of little skinny ones would look cool, too.

*gold paint

What you DON’T need to make this wreath:

Rustoleum Champagne Mist spray paint. When you spray your snakes gold with this, they will look awesome, and you’ll think things are going really well with your wreath making project….until they NEVER dry. And then you’ll be all, “but it says ‘ANY surface’!! It says it right here on the can!”

They need an asterisk next to “any surface” with a footnote that clarifies, “will turn any surface gold, but don’t try to paint your rubber snakes with this paint if you ever actually want to touch them again.”

I was on the verge of ordering more snakes and trying again, because I was determined to have a snake wreath, when I got the idea to try spraying some acrylic sealant over the tacky mess o’ snakes. And it worked! Well enough to get us through Halloween anyway. But I don’t recommend that route.

I’m not entirely sure what TO recommend. I read in a couple of places that Krylon spray paint is supposed to work on rubber. But I think the safest route is probably hand painting them with acrylic paint.

Anyway. I wrapped ribbon around the wreath form, securing it every so often with the floral pins through the back. These kind of hurt my fingers, by the way. Then I ran out of ribbon right before I ran out of wreath and had to go get more:

Next I took my gold snakes and set them on the wreath to see how I wanted them. I had thought about kind of wrapping snakes around the wreath more, but the ones from the dollar store are really inflexible, so I just put them tail to mouth going around the front of the wreath.

I used the floral pins to attach them. I painted the floral pins gold first so they’d blend in better, but I kind of did a crappy job because I was so tired of attempting to make things gold by then.

I stuck two more of the pins in the back to make a hanger (there’s already a command hook on the front door, and they fit perfectly over that.

You can see a couple of spots where the tacky paint stuck to the newspaper the snakes were sitting on. I’m trying to ignore that.

My mother won’t be able to come over until after Halloween now. She’s terrified of snakes.

Happy weekend! We’re going to be busy finishing those doors I keep talking about, and, I hope, doing some other stuff in the basement. Also maybe a pumpkin patch? Hayride? Other seasonally appropriate activities? Probably.

Linking with:

Link Party Palooza at I Heart Naptime

Outside the Box