Carved Styrofoam Holly Wreath

I’m so excited to be teaming up with a most excellent group of creative women from all over the world today to bring you EIGHT different wreath ideas for your Christmas home decor. We all got together and decided it would be fun to pick a theme and see what 8 different people crafting on a similar theme came up with. The results are super awesome.

My little wreath was really fun to bring to life and really pushed me creatively. Instead of thinking about how to construct a wreath working from a styrofoam ring base outwards, I decided to turn it upside down and work from the styrofoam ring base inwards. My first couple attempts at this concept were a total fail (one notable iteration of this project ended up looking like a ring of crab meat carved into a weird serving tray – picture a wreath form with a red outside and white insides, just like crab meat). Then, I started realizing that a subtler concept was not only going to work, but I think it turned out kind of elegant. I hope you do too! An as an added bonus, this can be whipped up pretty easily, which is great since Christmas is in nine days. Ack!

Want to see seven other amazing wreath DIYs from some of my favorite bloggers? Check out my friends at the Quarterly Collab!

Supplies

styrofoam wreath form
red & white straight pins
green acrylic paint
paint brush
styrofoam carving tool
twine (optional, for hanging)

Directions

Begin by painting your wreath form green with styrofoam-safe paint. Let dry completely.

Then, heat up your styrofoam carving tool and use the tip to cut holly leaf designs all over the front of your painted styrofoam wreath. The carving tool cuts (melts really) away the painted outside of the wreath, revealing the white styrofoam inside the wreath.

For tips on using the styrofoam cutting tool, which was provided to me by FloraCraft, you can check out this post.

Next, poke clusters of straight pins into your wreath where the leaf designs meet up. I used a combo of red and white pins, even though I’m not sure holly comes with white berries, for some variety.

To hang my wreath, I used a magnetic hook and some twine. You can hang wreaths more subtly than this, but I liked incorporating the natural look of the twine with the obviously not natural painted styrofoam.

This wreath is super fun & easy and adds a nice, bright pop of color to my super beige apartment hallway. You could definitely do more to add to this wreath idea too. I’m thinking about making a couple of needle felted woodland critters to perch on mine. What would you add to make this your own?

Don’t forget – 7 of my DIY blogger friends have some more gorgeous and creative wreath ideas for you today! Check them out at the Quarterly Collab!