DIY Batman Wreath (and other geeky holiday decor)

We posted this project a little too late last year (okay, a lot too late), so wanted to bump it up to the top so you can get started earlier on your Batman wreath this year!

We kept seeing a picture floating around the interwebs, of a Batman holiday wreath. Ends up it was just a t-shirt, dying to be made into a real life DIY Batman wreath. So we did that…

(originally posted 12/22/2014)

Here’s the Batman wreath shirt. It’s from ThinkGeek, who you guys KNOW we <3. We’ve been very, very behind on decorating this year (ahh, life), but knew we at least needed to make this (and a few geek ornaments). Want to make your own? You need about half an hour of time, and:

– Cardboard or foam core (we used foam core)
– Holiday garland stuff (we got ours at Joann. It was 70% off!)
– Optional holiday centerpiece thing (you’ll see)
– Glue (we seriously just used Elmer’s, because it was nearby)
– Scissors
– x-acto knife (or something like that)
– Wire cutters
– Litte red bow or ribbon

So yeah, we ran over to Joann and the garland was on clearance for maybe $2. Sweet. It’s the kind of garland that is all wire-bendable, so it stays exactly where you put it. You could use the shiny plastic garland if you’d like, or glue ornaments to the Batman shape – whatever you’ve got/want.

Draw a big Batman logo onto a big piece of cardboard/thick poster board/foam core (we went with foam core because we love it and have a TON). You can do this whatever size you’d like, but the larger it is the easier it is to keep the angles looking good once you’ve got the garland on. Batman is easy enough to freehand, and we drew it on with a white pencil, since our board is black.

Cut out the Batman shape, with an x-acto knife. Then cut out the inner part of the Batman shape, leaving about an inch left. Basically you just want the outline.

Take the garland and – since it’s all handy dandy filled with wires – press the large/main part of the garland against the Batman shape, then use the little smaller parts of the garland to wrap around the wreath form. (Wow, looking back on that, it sounds like it makes no sense… Let’s try explaining that again, but better, below):

Clarification: You don’t need any glue to hold the garland onto the wreath form, if you’re using a garland with wires in it. Just wrap the little garland “branches” around the Batman form, and the wires will hold it in place. ALTERNATIVELY, if you’re using regular non-wired garland or tinsel or whatever we’d like to call it, you could just glue it down. …which is probably actually an easier option, but we like the big fluffy look of this kind of garland.

This goes by quickly, taking maybe all of 10 minutes. We ended up snipping quite a few of the little mini “branches” off the garland to make it look more neat – and we then used those to fill in gaps on smaller areas, like the bat-ears and bat-points. Oh, and here’s another shot of what the back looks like:

We bought this little centerpiece decor thing at Joann, also 70% off. Really we ONLY bought it for the tiny little “berries” on it though, to more closely match the Batman wreath inspiration shirt.

After cutting the berries into smaller chunks, we glued them onto the Batman wreath, and finished it off with a little red bow.

We hung it up with a couple of tiny finishing nails.

What do you think of the Batman wreath? Here it is on our door:

If you’re looking for other geeky Christmas decorations or gifts, don’t forget about our:

DIY Geek Fandom Wreath

DIY 8-bit ornaments

DIY chocolate gaming dice / DIY D20 mold

and DIY D20 geek gingerbread house

Did you get any geeky holiday decorations up this year?