This modern {ish} DIY Fall Wreath is such an easy and FUN paper craft project that adds a nice pop of color to your autumn decor!  So pretty indoors OR outdoors.  You can use felt, card stock crafting scrapbook paper, or a combination of both!  The faux copper leaves made from spray painted paper add a cool mix of texture and a little bit of SHINE to this simple decoration.  BONUS:  This is one do it yourself home decor item you can leave up and enjoy from well before Labor Day until after Thanksgiving.  High five, buddy!

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I love how customizable this do it yourself wreath is!  You can use whatever colors you like – mixing felt and paper or just go with one or the other!  Let’s grab our simple supplies and get started!  YAY!

What you’ll need:

• Wire Wreath Frame (I used THIS 18″ size for the front door.  I also grabbed a 12″ size to make a mini version for my Mom.  Aren’t I the best?  That size would be super cute in a small room or bathroom, right?)  *p.s. I WOULD have made her a big one too, but she only wanted a small  one for her gallery wall.    Pinky swear.
• Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks
• 24 Gauge Copper Craft Wire
• Copper Metallic Spray Paint
• Wire Cutters and Scissors
• Assorted Colors of Craft Felt and Assorted Cardstock Scrapbook Paper (or plain/all the same color if you are going to spray paint them!)

So that the frames can be drying while we create the leaves – let’s paint them first:

If you don’t have some already – these Painter’s Pyramids are SO handy for any painting project!  They just touch a teeny tiny portion of your project and set them up just right so you can spray all around the side edges and speed drying time.  I got a gabillion of them when we repainted my kitchen and bathroom cabinets.  They saved us SO much time!  Srsly, you need to get some of these:

Give your wire wreath frames a nice even coat of your pretty metallic copper spray paint:

I’m trying to resist the urge to spray paint ALL the things with this now.  I LOVE how it turned out!

Next create a pattern / template for your individual leaves.  The beauty of leaves and nature art is they are NEVER perfectly symmetrical so you don’t have to stress about them being “perfect”!

I made my original out of cardstock so it was easy to trace multiple times onto a single piece of paper:

If you’d like to use the one I created – here you go!

Just click here or on the image below and use your computer’s settings to PRINT

This one worked great for the paper leaves so I could cut more at once.  FYI – I only used 16 of the paper leaves.  If you are going to make your wreath in all faux copper paper leaves – cut out around 42 of these babies!   Just clip your template to a stack of enough papers for whichever you are doing and cut those pretties out!  (If you are just going to spray paint them – use your ugly, never used colors.  Obvi.)

For the felt leaves – you want to use your nice fabric scissors so that your felt leaves don’t end up with a fuzzy, ucky edge to them.

You also want to cut out an individual pattern for ONE leaf and pin it to your felt.  Because cutting through paper with your sewing/fabric scissors is punishable by a severe flogging.  Fact.

Now let’s make the “stems”!  Grab your copper craft wire:

Using your wire cutters – cut your “stems” to whatever length you like:

I started out with mine about 9″ long and they were too long for my liking when I went to start wrapping them on the wreath frame.  I ended up liking them more at around 4 to 4 1/2″  long FYI.   They had plenty of stem to wrap around the wreath frame securely without having to wrap it around ten bagillion times.

Now it’s time to create our leaves so heat up your hot glue gun!

Let’s do the paper ones  first so we can spray paint them and have them drying while we make the felt leaves.  Just put a small dot of glue on the bottom rounded part of the leaf:

Pinch it closed around the top 1/2″ or so of your wire stem:

Before it’s completely dry, spread the base apart a bit with your finger and thumb so it looks more like a leaf than a cala lilly:

Now just take them all outside and line them up on some old cardboard or a drop cloth or both:

Give them a nice coat of metallic copper spray paint on one side:

Give them a few minutes to dry {or more if you really went to town coating them} and flip them over and do the backs:

While those are getting nice and dry outside let’s make our felt leaves!  Using the same process as the paper – put a drop of hot glue with your glue gun on the rounded base of your felt leaf:

Then just pinch it around the top 1/2″ or so of the wire stem while it gets dry for a few seconds!

They only take about 15 minutes to become completely dry.  Gotta love it!  Then I separated all my pretties out by color bunches so that I could alternate the leaf colors while I worked my way around the wreath frame:

I stopped after a few felt leaves to add in all of my painted copper paper leaves so that I knew those were evenly (ish) spaced out around the wreath:

Then alternate colors of felt leaves working your way around the wreath!  I kept working from the outer ring to the inner ring spacing them about 2 inches apart as I went around.    I had about half again more leaves but when I got to this point I thought it looked PERFECT and modern a little more sparse:  VOILA!

For reference – I used 25 felt leaves (about 3-4 of each color) and 16 faux copper paper leaves.  Use more if you want yours fuller or less if you want yours even more sparse!

Here’s how she looks on the front door.  All greety and peppy.   Just being all “Happy  FALL, Y’ALL!”

I love that it’s subtly FALL without being boring.  Not that there’s anything wrong with boring.  Jay kay, there totally is.

Will you make yours in all faux copper paper leaves, all felt colored leaves, or mix it up?  I’d love to see how yours turns out!

Make sure to PIN THIS IMAGE while you go grab your supplies: 

While you’re here – make sure to check out my Family Word Art faux barn wood sign tutorial.  It’s SO much fun to create and they make the best gifts!

Just click HERE or on the image below to get the deets!

Happy Creating, Friends!