Welcome to Our Haunted Home

It's October which means Halloween will soon be here!  I stitched the Welcome to Our Haunted Home design found in the Just CrossStitch 2019 Special Collector's Issue for Halloween and finished it as a home decor piece.  It's a design by Linda Medina of Medina Originals.  I started it in 2019 and finished it this past January.  The only change I made to the design was omitting the stitches around the words Welcome and Home; I just wanted the focus on Haunted.  There were minimal floss colors

needed for the design; DMC 310 and 721, and Kreinik 152V.  The word Haunted was to be a blend of the Kreinik and DMC 721 but I used what I had in my stash and stitched it only in 721 and that was fine for me.  My choice of fabric was a 100% 14 ct. natural Aida by Charles Craft Gold Standard.  I loved stitching on it and the color is great too!  I had seen the black wreath at Michaels last year and the finishing idea popped up in my head!  When I went back to check for Halloween clearance they were sold out however, I did purchase a pick with the 3 skeleton hands.  So a few months ago I was happy to find the wreath was back in stock so I could create this Halloween finish!  The orange and green berries and the skeleton head I purchased from A.C. Moore during their closing sale last year.  I used a 12" round cake board (Lori from Once Upon a Stitch had mentioned this in one of her videos as an idea to use as a base for a circular finish!) from my cake decorating stash for the circular base, adhered two layers of batting on top for padding and then hot glued the stitched piece, corners only (the stitched piece is a square), onto the covered board.  I then used wire to wrap around the piece and weave it through the wreath to hold.  Instead of using glue, I also attached all the other embellishments with wire to complete the finish!  I have it hanging on the inside of my front door so I can enjoy it! (I got that hanging idea from a Helen D. home tour video!)