Fall is here and that means it’s time to decorate for the season! And no one decorates for Halloween like the Disney parks. Every single detail about the parks decor is absolute perfection and nothing says Halloween time like the seasonal Mickey pumpkins and wreaths that adorn the Disney parks during the fall. They truly are iconic staples for spooky season and now you can make your own Mickey pumpkin wreath at home! Let me show you step-by-step how to make this amazing wreath to add to your own spooky season decor!
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HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL NEED
- 9 inch carvable pumpkin, cut in half
- Fall leaves garland (I used 2 strands for the wreath and one for my lamp post)
- 6 inch foam ball, cut in half
- Battery powered fairy lights (I used two strands)
- Fall leaves, berries, and flowers picks
- 16 inch metal floral hoop
- Floral wire
- Black electrical tape
- Bamboo skewers
- Hot glue gun
- Foam sheets
- Craft paint
- UV resistant clear gloss
HOW TO MAKE YOUR MICKEY WREATH
Step 1
To start, take your 16″ metal floral hoop and using a small piece of floral wire attach the circle on the garland to the hoop. Then, using black electrical tape, secure the end of your fall leaves garland just below the circle. Work your way around the hoop, taping the garland to the hoop every 6 inches or so to make sure the garland is staying along the hoop the entire way around.
Step 2
Once you have the entire garland taped to the hoop, repeat the process with the second garland starting where the first garland left off. My second strand didn’t make it all the way to the beginning point so there was a small spot that seemed a little more sparse than the rest of the hoop. Don’t worry about that, you can fill it in with other leaves later.
Step 3
Next, you want to add the fairy lights. Using electrical tape, secure one end of the strand to the hoop. Then, wrap the lights around the hoop until you use up the entire strand. You will want the battery pack to be at the bottom of the hoop. I used one strand of lights for this step.
Step 4
Next up, take your 9″ pumpkin and cut it in half using a hand saw. This will make it much easier to trace and cut out the face. Once it’s cut in half, you can either free hand the face onto the pumpkin or you can print off a photo and trace the face onto the pumpkin. This is also where you can get creative and do whichever face you’d like. If you’re a big fan of Blinky his face would look so cute on this!
Step 5
Now that you’ve got the face traced, it’s time to carve the face of your pumpkin! You can easily do this with an exacto knife, just make sure you go slowly so you don’t cause the pumpkin to tear as you go. I noticed as I did mine that it is much easier to push the shape out from the inside of the pumpkin. If you notice any rough areas after you pull our your pieces just smooth them out bit by bit with your exacto knife.
Step 6
Once your pumpkin’s face is all carved, it’s time to give Mickey some ears! You could add pumpkins for ears like Disneyland’s Mickey pumpkin or do the classic Mickey wreath look from Disney World with the rounded ears. For this, we’re going with the rounded ears. I got a 6″ foam ball and cut it in half with a hand saw to make my two ears. Then I put the circles up to my Mickey pumpkin to see how much of a curve to cut into them. Once I cut the curve into each ear, I placed them face down onto a foam sheet, traced them, and cut those out. Then I took a softball and made a slight indentation in the center of each foam ear so they had a little dimension and looked more like actual ears than rigid circles.
Now it’s time to paint! I mixed orange with some yellow, green, brown, and coral color to get the orange I ended up with. Just add and mix more colors until you are happy with the tone of orange. Then paint the Mickey ears, the foam circles you traced from the ears, and the Mickey pumpkin itself to ensure they all match. I also painted the inside of my Mickey pumpkins face yellow so there was some contrast where you can see the inside of the design I cut out.
Step 7
Once the paint dried on all of the pieces, I glued the foam sheets to the front of the foam circles so they had that smooth look. Then I took a skewer and broke it in half. I put half of the skewer into each ear about halfway and then skewered the ears into the pumpkin. I then pulled the ears out a little bit, applied a generous amount of hot glue and then pushed them back into the holes I had just created and let them set.
Step 8
Once I got the ears skewered on and glued in place, I secured them along the back and front seams with hot glue and touched them up with paint once it was set. I cut the skewers inside the pumpkin down so I had about an inch left to secure some wire to. I took the floral wire and wrapped it around the skewers multiple times and left about 10-12 inches of wire on both sides to secure to the hoop. Then I hot glued the wire wrapped around the skewer so it wouldn’t slide off or come lose.
Step 9
To make sure that the pumpkin would sit back into the wreath, I took the two sides of the wire on each side of the pumpkin and twisted them together about 3/4 of the way up. I then held the Mickey pumpkin up to the wreath to see exactly where I wanted it to sit. Once I had it in the right place I twisted the remaining parts of the floral wire around the metal hoop to secure the pumpkin above each ear so it was now hanging from the hoop.
Step 10
Once I had the pumpkin secured to the hoop, I wanted to make sure the pumpkin would sit back into the wreath nicely so I pressed the wire up to the foam ears to make an indentation. I then took my exacto knife and cut a slit in the back of the ears along that indentation and pressed the wire into each ear. Then I hot glued that seam to keep the wire from coming out. This step seriously made the biggest difference for the look and sturdiness of the wreath.
Step 11
Now that the structural part of the wreath is done, it’s time to pretty it up. Using hot glue, fill in any sparse spots with more leaves, berries, flowers, pumpkins, pinecones, whatever you want to include! Most of the berries, leaves, and flowers I added into my wreath I got from Joann’s but I found some for you here that would also work really well.
Step 12
Once your wreath is all prettied up, flip it over so you can see the inside of the Mickey. Take your second strand of the fairy lights and glue the end of your strand (the end without the battery pack) into the pumpkin. There will be a large chunk of the light strand left after this step, I wrapped mine around the lamp post I display my wreath on.
Step 13
Take a piece of the foam you put on the front of your ears and cut it down to fit inside your pumpkin just behind where you glued your lights in. Paint it a light yellow/orange color so it looks like the inside of a pumpkin.
Step 14
Take your piece of foam and place it into your pumpkin. You will want to cut a little notch in the bottom where your light strand comes out of the pumpkin. Once it’s in the right place, glue it to the sides of the pumpkin so that it stays in place.
Step 15
Now you want to protect that beautiful wreath! Take it outside and give it a nice coat of UV resistant clear gloss and allow it to air out before hanging it up.
Step 16
Now that your wreath is done, it’s time to get that bad boy out for everyone to see! You can put this on your front door or hang it from a post. I bought this cute solar powered lamp post for my front porch and used some black electrical tape to put a hook on it to hang my wreath. I took the remaining fairy light strand that I put inside the Mickey and wrapped it down the post. I then wrapped my post with another garland of leaves like I used in the wreath to tie it all together.
And there you have it! The cutest little Mickey pumpkin wreath for your own porch. And how cute it is it all lit up? I am so happy with how this one turned out!
I hope you all enjoy this DIY as much as I do. If you make your own Mickey pumpkin wreath, I would love to see how they turn out! Tag me @theramblingintrovert on Instagram or Facebook in your finished projects so I can see how they turned out!
Hazel @ Pixie Dust Words
Oh goodness, how cute is this?! It looks so simple to make as well! Will have to give this one a try!
Jess Vodden
Thank you so much Hazel! I hope you enjoy it!