The first halloween decoration I saw this year was a black witch hat made out of vines and I knew I wanted to have one. The only problem is I wanted multiple and they were fairly pricey- they were from Anthropologie after all. So I set on a mission to DIY one myself. This is the simplest way I figured out how to do it.
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The Christmas trees I bought in person at Old Time Pottery as they always have Christmas things out. One of them had lights already installed in it so it was $9.99. It would be more price effective to find the Christmas trees without the lights (like these ones) and then add the lights on at the end. The red one didn't have lights and was only $6.99.
Anyway, the first this I'm doing is zip tying the bottom of the Christmas tree to the wire wreath. I'm using black ones specifically so they blend in when we paint later.
I ended up putting 4 on each, sort of equally distanced. Make sure that the zip tie is attached the wire fram of the Christmas tree and not just the rope and garland wrapped around it.
For the taller Christmas tree I put together two different sized wire wreaths.
I gave them the same zip tie treatment. Four equally spaced and we are good to go!
Since this one has lights on it, I made sure the plug was going through the middle and not above the wire wreath.
Now it is starting to look like something resembling a witch hat.
On another note, sometimes you can find witch hat frames already made in this shape (but obviously halloween colors) but I think it just really depends on the styles that are out that year. This year I looked at every Box store, dollar store, discount store and more in two different cities and could not find a single one.
Then I decided the white balls wrapped around the Christmas tree could be easily removed, so I took that off and saved it for another project.
I'm doing two versions of the witch hat. For the red one I am adding jute rope at the bottom as it will match the top pretty well. I tied the end of the rope to the bottom of the Christmas tree and started wrapping it around. It took a good amount of layers for it to finally start reaching out toward the next hoop of wire.
I'm using hot glue to attach the rope to the wire and to itself. In between the wires I attached the rope to itself until a row was close enough to the wire to glue it there.
For the other one I am using dried grapevines that I unrolled from a wreath. I'm wrapping it around the bottom just like the previous one except the grapevines cannot be held by hot glue. I used only zip ties to attach the grapevine. I used about 4 ft. lengths that I cut off the wreath and attached one end to the bottom wire with a zip tie. Then I slowly wrapped the grapevine around and about half way around added another zip tie. It's a little particular to get it started, but once you do, the other pieces attach much easier.
I think I ended up using 4 4ft.(ish) lengths to make it look as full as I wanted. Of course, I could've added more grapevine to the top, but in the end I didn't really think it was necessary. But if you want it to be more concentrated, just wrap your hat as much as you'd like.
Another option is to buy a
grapevine wreath in the correct size for your tree and zip tie them together. It would make this so easy! The only difference would be that the wreath is a little more dense and neat whereas this one looks more oganic and natural. Just depends on the look you are going for in your decoration.
Now of course the red witch hat could not stay like this, it needed to be painted. You could keep the natural grapevine color of the other one if you like that look.
But when I started making these I knew I wanted them to be black, so I spray painted them. Side note: spray painting something with glitter on it was very interesting. I guess I've never done such a thing before? Because I was surprised to see that the red glitter really resisted the black paint when I first sprayed it. But I let it dry and then put a second coat on. That coat finally covered the glitter.
And one more tip: you'll want to spray the inside of the hat too as the color on the inside can be seen from the outside too. Especially if your Christmas tree is bright red like mine.
I wrapped
these fairy lights around the hats for some added magical-ness. They are battery operated so the battery pack can be hot glued to the inside of the hats. And because my plan was always to hang these on my porch, I tied a fishing line loop around and through the top of the hat.
Happy Halloween!
