This DIY cotton wreath made with cotton balls is a great project that allows you to make a classic fall wreath for a tiny fraction of the cost of buying one pre-made.
This DIY cotton wreath is one of those fun projects that takes really simple, basic materials and turns them into something much greater than the sum of its parts. I love when you can take something that you see every day, look at it from a bit of a different perspective, and turn it into something really special and completely different.
This project started off when I did a little experiment and made my DIY cotton stems a couple of weeks ago. They were so easy to make, and came together so quickly that I couldn’t help but think “Hmm, I wonder if I could make a whole wreath with this same technique?” Well, spoiler alert, I was able to make a cotton wreath in very much the same way that I made the cotton stems, but it definitely wasn’t a quick and easy project. This was more of a labor of love for sure. It takes quite a few more cotton balls for this project, so this is a good one to work on while you’re having a cozy movie-watching, or netflix-binging weekend.
Materials Needed to Make a DIY Cotton Wreath
- Grapevine wreath form
- 1 Pack of Cotton Balls
- 2-3 Large Pinecones
- Hot Glue
See? The simplest of materials! This wreath making process is definitely more about elbow grease than fancy craft supplies. 🙂
For the pinecones, I just used the ones we have on our property, but if you don’t have this same type of pinecone available near you, any type will work just fine.
I’ve seen quite a few DIY cotton wreaths floating around where people have used store bought cotton stems or pre-made cotton garlands and just wrapped those around a wreath form, but I really wanted to challenge myself with this and see if I could make it work with just basic cotton balls. So that’s what I did!
How to Make a DIY Cotton Wreath
The first thing that you’ll need to do is glue a whoooole bunch of cotton balls to your wreath form. Just a word of warning: You’re probably going to think this project is a complete disaster right up until your wreath is finished and hung. It’s just one of those types of projects. I really thought I had lost my mind a few times when I was making this thing. 🙂
I glued my cotton balls in little clusters of 3-4 all around the wreath and I tried to space them out fairly evenly, every 2-3 inches or so around the wreath. When I was done with that, I started filling in the empty spots with single cotton balls. There really is no rule as to how full or how sparse your DIY cotton wreath needs to be. I’ve seen some that are really sparse and some that are almost completely covered in cotton balls and both look pretty great. I really like the mix of the fluffy cotton balls with the rustic natural grapevine, so I tried to leave quite a bit of wreath showing through.
The next step is to remove about a gazillion pine cone scales from your pine cones. I found that using pliers on my type of pine cones was just breaking the scales into little pieces, so I just pulled them out with my fingers. I did cut my thumb pretty badly at one point though, so be careful! The things I do in the name of crafting…. 🙂
When I made my DIY cotton stems, I glued about 3-4 little pinecone scales to the bottom of each cotton ball, but for the wreath, I just tried to get enough scales in there that it kind of gave the look of having a few scales on each cotton balls without actually having to use that many scales. I placed a scale in between two cotton balls here and there where cotton balls were touching each other to make them more highly-visible, and I also just tried to stick them in places where they would be really noticeable and not blend in with the grapevine.
And then I repeated those steps about a thousand times until I was happy with how my wreath looked!
The Finished DIY Cotton Wreath
Cotton wreaths are of course pretty fun for fall decor, but I like that they’re being used more and more throughout the year as well now. With all the work I put into this one, I’m definitely happy to let it see the light of day for longer than a few weeks! 🙂
Have you tried making your own DIY cotton wreath before? How did it turn out?
MORE IDEAS LIKE THIS
- Top Ten Favourite Dollar Store Home Decor Finds
- Farmhouse Style Home Decor Essentials That You Can Make Yourself
- How to Age Galvanized Metal with Basic Household Ingredients
- DIY Home Decor Orbs Made From Embroidery Hoops
- Stencilled Pallet Wood Wall Art
- The Creek Line House Easy-Peasy Decorating Idea Archives
This post contains affiliate links.
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.