The paper bag wreath: Halloween version

Back in August I made a paper bag wreath.

Actually, I made two. Once I got gluing those little flowers it was hard to stop! I loved how it turned out so much that I started thinking about what other kinds of paper I could use to make a wreath besides brown paper sacks, and the first thing that came to my mind was book pages.

One trip to the Dollar Store and $2 later, I came out with another wreath form and a paperback book and plans to make a black and white version of the wreath that would be perfect for Halloween!

I used the same technique as on the brown wreath, but I punched my flowers out of pages torn out of a really bad sci-fi book instead. (I read snippets of the book as I was punching out the flowers and trust me, being made into a wreath was a serious improvement. That thing was dreck.) One small difference from the brown wreath was that I covered the wreath form in strips of black fabric so the green foam wouldn't show through. You could also use black tape, but I had the fabric close at hand so that's what I used.

I liked how the black and white looked on its own, but I wanted to use it for Halloween so I drew some bat shapes with a white pencil on the back of some glittery black cardstock from my stash. I hot-glued them to the wreath and then bent and curled the wings with my fingers to give them a bit of dimension. For the second wreath, I found a package of velvety black diecut Halloween shapes at Michael's. I used the bats again but the package also contained spiders, which would be a fun addition to the wreath with a bit of that cottony fake web stuff stretched across it.

I still love this wreath technique and I wouldn't mind making another one without the shapes because I love the graphic look of the white paper and black text. I'm also thinking of other kinds of paper I could use to make this wreath--white kitchen waxed paper crossed my mind, but I think that might not produce nice clean edges on the punched shapes. What other kinds of paper do you think would make a pretty wreath?

(PS--is anyone still having problems with Blogger's 'new' uploader? Why do I have to reload my photos EVERY SINGLE TIME I go to post one? It didn't start out like this.)