Happy first day of fall, spooky friends! It feels like it was just August three days ago and Halloween was more than 100 days away. Now we’re nearly in the home stretch with October 1 a little more than a week from today. And I don’t know about you, but I am getting seriously excited for Halloween 2016!
So excited that I’ve already been working on DIY projects. If you follow me on Instagram, be on the lookout this weekend – I’m starting my big build project for my Halloween party, and I’ll be giving you a sneak peek via stories!
You might remember a sneak peek I gave you in August of a DIY project I did with my mom. Today’s finally the day you get to see the full project! (A special thank you to my mom for allowing me to show off her project…and slow her way down as I took photos of every last little thing. I’m grateful she puts up with her Halloween-crazed daughter.)

DIY Witch Cauldron Centerpiece
Isn’t this cute? For as long as I can remember, my mom has always loved witches. When I was growing up, she had a “For Witches Only” parking sign on her side of the garage, and you can bet there were a few times I even wondered if she WAS a witch when she used those eyes-in-the-back-of-your-head only moms seem to have. (It was eerie what she knew and saw!)
The last few years she’s been talking about wanting a crashed witch in her Halloween decor, and this is what she came up with! I think the centerpiece is a nice alternative to the outdoor crashed witch decorations. Plus, it was super easy to make and is a great option if you’re not uber crafty but like making your own decor from time to time. Minimal hot glue required! (Always a plus for me.)
Here’s how we did it:

DIY Witch Cauldron Centerpiece Supplies
- Cauldron (recommend ceramic or metal, not plastic)
- Witch legs
- Wire for legs, if needed – 12 gauge*
- Styrofoam block (from floral section of craft store)
- Halloween florals (2-3 different types)
- Halloween filler, ornaments (1-2 different types)
- Floral wire*
- Floral pick*
- Floral stem wire – 16 gauge*
- Halloween ribbon with wire edge
- Witch broom*
- Hot glue gun, hot glue
- Knife
- Cutting board
*Optional items
The photo above was the items we started with. We ended up adding to them to fill out the florals and fillers. We also didn’t end up using everything pictured.
Sources for all items featured in this DIY project are listed at the end of the post.
Directions:
Building your base

First, start with your Styrofoam block. Purchase one that is relatively close in size to your cauldron. Our block was a little larger than the cauldron, so we started by trimming the corners off to make it fit using a serrated kitchen knife. The above photo shows where my mom marked her corners – don’t trim on top of the cauldron! Use a cutting board.
By the way – I’d steer clear of cheap plastic cauldrons for this project. The finished centerpiece could be top-heavy, and you don’t want the entire thing toppling over on you. Metal or ceramic are great choices. (Michaels has a great ceramic cauldron that’s $2o, but they almost always have Halloween 40% off – or you could use a coupon from their app like I do for all my goodies!)

Our Styrofoam was a little too tall for the cauldron, so we also trimmed off the bottom.

Perfect! Don’t over trim. Making sure your Styrofoam is a snug fit so your completed display doesn’t rattle around in the cauldron.

We opted to hot glue the bottom for extra sturdiness. This will also help once you start adding to your arrangement, esp. if you pull things out – the Styrofoam will stay put!

Press it to the bottom and give it a couple minutes to set.
Prepping the focal point

While we let the base set up, we moved on to prepping our focal points – the witch legs! You could definitely use pre-made witch legs for this, which you can find just about anywhere these days.
My mom happened to have these legs she purchased at a craft show last year for the project, so that’s what we used. First, we trimmed the legs off the fabric base.

Next we used some 12 gauge wire my dad had in the garage to make sure our witch legs would stand up straight. We measured the wire the length of the legs, plus another 4-5 inches for inserting into the Styrofoam block.

You know it’s a serious project when you get out the wire cutters!

Using the end of the wire, we poked a small hole in the end of the witch leg and carefully fed it through.

Once the wire was inserted into both legs, we set it out on the table with our broom to get an idea of how it would be placed in the cauldron. We also trimmed off the excess wire from the legs.
Adding your focal point

We’re ready to start building! First, we inserted the broom into the Styrofoam since it is the dead center of our centerpiece.

Next, we added the legs. This will all be covered with our florals and fillers by the end, so we decided to stagger the witch legs a little
Adding your florals
Now that we’ve gotten the base and focal point together, it’s time to start adding the fun stuff! We started with florals.

First, we trimmed single flowers off the bush and made sure to trim each one at their base for maximum length. When you place them you don’t want them all to be the exact same height, but you can push them down in the Styrofoam at different heights to create that dimension instead of trimming them short.

So pretty!

Start placing your flowers in the arrangement. You don’t have to use all of them right away – place a few to get started, then switch to another floral piece. Layering them in will help give your centerpiece dimension.

We added in these orange leaves next.

In addition to varying height, you can also bend the stems to help create dimension, like we did with this orange leaf.

Keep layering things in! And remember, you don’t have to use every last piece.
We ended up making a craft supplies run at this point because we decided a third floral option would look best.

The purple flowers were our addition.
Once your centerpiece is looking full, start turning it and looking for holes…like the one my mom is pointing to here. Ugh, so giant and gaping and ugly, right?

Ah, much better! It’s looking pretty good now, isn’t it? Keep on layering until your arrangement is nice and full!
Adding your fillers

The witch hat ornaments and candy corns were our filler. These little pieces are perfect for popping in throughout the floral arrangement to add another layer of color dimension.

Because these hats were actually ornaments, we did a mini DIY project to make these and the candy corn into picks. Here’s how!

We cut the floral stem wire (16 gauge) in half.

The ornaments happened to have a hole in the bottom that was the perfect size for this wire!

We inserted the floral stem wire into the ornament, then used a little dab of hot glue to hold it in place.

Once the glue had cooled and the floral stem wire felt sturdy, we placed the hat in a small paper cup to dry.

The candy corn was a little easier to work with since they were Styrofoam.

No hot glue required! We just cut a few more pieces for floral stem wire in half and inserted them directly into the candy corn.

Then my mom looked for spots to add these. We spaced them out around the arrangement, but you could also group a few together in different spots and vary their heights.

Eek! It’s looking so good!

So cute!
Adding ribbon loops

One of the final touches we added was ribbon loops.

Wire edged ribbon is best for this so the ribbon holds its shape over time. We cut 10-12 inch pieces and made a loop by hand. Then, using a few plastic floral picks like this that we had on hand, we attached the ribbon loop at the point where it is gathered in the photo using floral wire. The loops were then inserted throughout the arrangement.
You could also easily use wooden floral picks for this as well.

Voila! It doesn’t take a lot of these to make your arrangement look great.
Final steps
Take one last survey of your centerpiece and use any remaining florals, filler or ribbon to fill in holes! Don’t forget you can bend your florals or move things around to tweaks – that’s part of what makes this project so simple.

DIY Witch Cauldron Centerpiece

We added some extra height with the black, orange and purple jack-o-lantern filler. You may notice we opted not to use the green filler in the first supply photo – it ended up being too short for what we wanted to accomplish.
TA DAH! A super simple witch cauldron centerpiece that will look great at your killer Halloween party!
Supply sources
Here are the sources for all of the Halloween items featured in this post, including the year they were purchased.
Michael’s
Cauldron – 2015
Black flowers – 2016
Purple flowers – 2016
Orange leaves – 2016
Witch hat ornaments – 2016
Candy corns – 2016
Jo-Ann’s
Black, purple and green plaid wire edge ribbon – 2016
Black and orange plaid wire edge ribbon – 2016
Broom – 2016
Hobby Lobby
Large black, orange and purple jack-o-lantern filler – 2016
Craft Show
Witch legs – 2015
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What do you think of this DIY Halloween project?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. By the way, for those of you who have asked for DIY projects on a budget, I have one coming your way soon!
Don’t forget: you still have time to enter my anniversary giveaway for 21 amazing Halloween items worth more than $150 (closes Sept. 30, 2016 at 11:59 p.m. CST).
Happy DIYing,




Micky - Pretty Pink Pumpkin
Love this!!
Miranda | Spooky Little Halloween
Thanks so much, Micky!
Brittany
Omg this is the cutest Halloween diy ever! ❤
Miranda | Spooky Little Halloween
Thank you so much, Brittany! Cannot take any credit for it since it was my mom’s, but I just love it. :) Thanks for reading!