16 Fall Wreaths That'll Welcome Everyone at Your Front Door

Wreaths add to the welcoming atmosphere of the fall season. Warm colors, harvested earthy materials, and autumnal fragrances combine to craft a wreath that lets your guests know they are welcome to enter your home.

Choose a design that looks as good during the early days of fall as it does on Halloween night or Thanksgiving. Pine cones, corn husks, and dried foliage all make for a perfect transitional wreath. Fall leaves in all of their colorful splendor can be used to inspire a design: Preserve a batch of leaves—in vibrant red, orange, and golden shades—by creating a wreath made entirely of your favorite foliage. In the spirit of the harvest, instead of discarding the corn husks from your farm stand corn, why not turn them into a pretty and rustic cornhusk wreath that you hang on the front door? Arrange the corn husks around a straw wreath form, securing with T pins as you go, and lay the leftovers until you have your ideal design.

For the days leading up to Halloween, our wriggling snake wreath may be harmless in actuality, but it will definitely delight your guests and any visiting trick-or-treaters on the night of October 31. You can also incorporate fragrant accents like cinnamon sticks, cloves, and dried herbs in your wreath and bring in the pleasant scents of fall. These are especially ideal for entrances and stairwells where the scent can waft through the space, enticing everyone to the Thanksgiving dinner table.

Nothing says "home for the holidays" quite like a wreath that can evoke the memories of enjoying each others' company. Hang one of our handmade fall wreaths on your front door and you're well on your way to creating an atmosphere ideal for gathering friends and family together.

To make a wreath that evokes fancy French metalwork, give natural materials the Midas touch. Gather dried or hardy foliage, like holly leaves, ferns, and pinecones. Then attach each piece onto a simple wire frame with floral tape or hot glue. (Or fashion one out of a metal hanger, as we did here, working it into a circle and leaving the hook for hanging.) Then wave your wand: Two dustings of gold spray paint and a wisp of ribbon later, you'll have a dazzling door prize.

Shop Now: Dried Décor Black Spruce Cones, in Small, $8 for 100, drieddecor.com; Garden Beauty LV Dried Fern Leaves, $5.75 for 20, gardenbeautylv.etsy.com; Crafts 4 Curing Cancer White Spruce Pinecones, $5.50 for 30, crafts4curingcancer.etsy.com; Kuny Coral Peach Velvet Ribbon, 9 mm and 36 mm, starting from $3 a yd., suchgoodsupply.com; Ashland Green Stem Wire, 16 gauge, $2.75 for twelve 18" pieces, michaels.com; Ashland Brown Floral Tape, $3, michaels.com; Krylon High-Gloss Metallic Spray Paint, in Gold Leaf, $7, lowes.com.

This crafted design takes its chic spin on a round wreath. Gather bundles of dried wheat, arrange them in parallel diagonal rows then perpendicular rows to result in a diamond shape, and wrap all points of intersection with wire. Then, all that's left is to hang your finished creation with ribbon.

A fillable metal base—combining elements of the Himmeli-inspired geometric shape in a brass finish—can be decorated with any seasonal touches. Evoke the harvest at home with a wreath using dried greenery like ruscus leaves, poppy pods, bunny tail, and pampas grass.

Dried flowers shed their stodgy reputation in a chic wreath that represents the table's color palette. Tuck clusters of Spanish moss into a grapevine wreath, covering it in a loose layer. Add dried flowers (we used craspedia, margaritas, globe thistle, nigella pods, and canella berries): Trim the stems to 1 inch, tuck them into place, and secure with hot glue as necessary. Hang with fishing line. (We purchased materials for this from teresasplants.com, which is offering a kit with all the supplies needed for this wreath.)

Shop Now: Ashland Grapevine Wreath, 18", $5, michaels.com; Ashland Preserved Spanish Moss, $4.75 a bag, michaels.com; Dried Décor Casperdilla Flowers, $18 a bunch, drieddecor.com; Dried Décor Globe Thistle, $10 a bunch, drieddecor.com; Bloomist Dried Nigella Pods, $18 for 30, bloomist.com.

Dried wreaths don't have to skew over-the-top country. This wild wonder owes its elegant good looks to the natural materials that embellish its standard straw base. We added wheat stalks laced with wooden beads and sculptural seedpods.

Autumn is harvest season for almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, and walnuts. But there's no need to squirrel them away for winter. Celebrate their abundance with this festive decoration. Use any hard-shelled nuts, including acorns you gather from your own backyard. Simply hot-glue walnuts to a 5-inch-long segment of 1 side of a 24-inch flat wooden wreath form, then fill in the spaces with smaller ones, hot-gluing them to the form and the walnuts as you work.

Shop Now: Artfully Crafted by AC Wood Wreath Form, $11, etsy.com; Nuts.com Mixed Nuts In Shell, $7 for 1 lb. bag, nuts.com; Lena and Lila "Ginger" Satin Ribbon, starting from $4.50, etsy.com.

Long after the last leaves on the lawn have been raked away, this autumnal wreath will hold on to its crispness and color. It's accented with hydrangea boughs dried to a shimmering gold. And because the flowers and greenery are dried, this decoration can be hung year after year.

Shop Now: Budget Wedding Bouquet Twig Wreath, $6.95, etsy.com; My Mom's Art and Garden Dried Hydrangeas, $46.50, etsy.com.

Once cotton has been picked from the stem, you're left with these pretty bracts. Fashion them into a rustic round and you're turning debris into décor. Trim bracts to 4-to-5-inch pieces and attach to a grapevine wreath using floral wire, hot glue, or zip ties. Keep adding bracts until the wreath is completely covered. To extend the look beyond a wreath, use bracts in floral arrangements or display them alone in a vase.

Shop Now:Ashland Grapevine Wreath, 18", $5, michaels.com; Bloomist Cotton Stalks, $18 a bunch, bloomist.com; Ashland Copper Floral Wire, 14 gauge, $3, michaels.com.

This October, add some eerie elegance to your usual cobweb-and-spider porch display with a bewitching ebony wreath. Simply arrange and hot-glue faux flowers onto a grapevine wreath, spray it entirely with black paint, and let dry. Goth has never looked so good.

Shop Now: Ashland Grapevine Wreath, 24", $10, michaels.com; Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch Black Spray Paint, $4, homedepot.com; Ashland White Peony Stem, $13, michaels.com.

Wooden cones give this wreath a natural, homegrown feel for easy fall décor. Greet friends and family with this golden harvest-themed door decorations. To make it, trace the outer edge of an 18-inch craft ring onto poster board and cut out; glue the pieces together. To cover the ring, stagger 7-inch wooden cones with 4.7-inch cones, tacking them to each other with hot glue as you go. Visitors will never guess how easy they are to assemble. And unlike fresh wreaths, this sculptural piece should last for years.

Shop Now: Ashland Floral Craft Ring, 18", $6.39, michaels.com; Bamboo MN Wood Cones, starting from $10 for 100, amazon.com.

Corn husks take on a satiny sheen when dyed a rich, wine-colored shade and looped around a wreath frame. The resulting display makes a radiant autumnal welcome.

If you suffer from ophidiophobia—the abnormal fear of snakes—then you'd best beware: This Halloween wreath hung on the front door gets the holiday off to a screaming start. Here, a coil of toy snakes are painted in black matte, embedded with wire onto a grapevine wreath form, and made to look sinister and almost alive.

We fell in love with these tapioca wood flowers and put them to use in this easy-to-make wreath—which works throughout the season's holidays and will last for years. To make it, glue flowers to a 16-inch craft ring, placing them as close as possible to each other so the form doesn't show through. (Stagger the size of the flowers to create a more visually interesting wreath.) Glue the center of a length of ribbon to the back of the wreath and use tacks to pin the loose ends to the top of the door.

Shop Now: Ashland Craft Ring, 16", $7.39, michaels.com; Sola Wood Flowers Wild Zinnia, $13 for 10, amazon.com; Celebrate It Burgundy Satin Ribbon, 7/8", $5, michaels.com.

A willow branch can be decorated with hand-dyed pom-poms for berries. Pour 4 cups very hot water into a small plastic tub, then add 4 teaspoons of dye (different combinations of tangerine, scarlet, taupe and wine colors look great). Submerge pom-poms in the dye bath for at least 5 minutes, leaving some in the dye longer for more saturated color. Remove the pom-poms with a slotted spoon, and let dry on a baking sheet lined with paper towels; leave undisturbed until completely dry, about two days. Then, use a paintbrush to dab a fast-drying clear glue such as Magna-Tac on wreath's branches to adhere the pom-poms. Try assorted sizes of pom-poms and two or three concentrated dyes for natural-looking color variations.

Shop Now: Ashland Grapevine Wreath, 18", $5, michaels.com; Blulu White Pom-Poms, 1/2", $10 for 500, amazon.com; Rit All-Purpose Liquid Dye, $7.90, amazon.com; Beacon Magna-Tac, $13, amazon.com.

Dusty-brown corn husks speak of fall harvests—use them here for a multi-pointed star that closely resembles a fading autumn sun. To shape the radiating tamale husks: Dunk husks in water, blot slightly, and temporarily pin to wreath so they dry naturally in draped, curled, or undulating shapes.

This is one of the easiest wreaths we've ever made. No fussing over symmetry or bending of boughs—just some spray paint, a hot-glue gun, and floral wire. For each sweet gum fruit, remove the stem, dab hot glue into one opening, and insert a length of wire; let dry. Coat sweet gum fruits and straw wreath form with spray paint; let dry. Push wire end of each fruit completely into wreath. (If pushing the wire in is difficult, pre-drill the wreath with a pointy object, such as a knitting needle.) The gentle coating of white conjures the season's first snow.

Shop Now: Bloomist Nickel Sweet Gum Balls, $18 for 50, bloomist.com; Celebrate It Lavender Satin Ribbon, 1.5" $5, michaels.com.