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My mom has been making fall wreaths for our front door longer than I have been alive, and every year there is a hole in the middle of hers that she swears she will figure out. Some years it is a bow. Some years it is nothing and the door just looks a little naked. The year I started slipping a printed center sign into the wire frame, she called me from her porch to ask what I had done to her wreath, in a good way.
Her palette never changes. Deep red and cream, the same two she has used since I was little, so anything I print has to live in that range or it fights the ribbon. I print on 110 lb cardstock, punch two holes near the top, and run floral wire through to anchor it behind the front sprigs. The first one I made looked great for about a week. Then the laminate bubbled in the humidity off our porch and I had to peel it and redo the whole thing with a cold-laminate sheet, which I should have used the first time.
These are the center prints I have actually wired into one of her wreaths or a friend’s. A few of the links are affiliate links, so if you grab one I might get a small cut. Costs you nothing. Here they are.
Little Mushrooms in the Wire Frame
Mushrooms were the first thing I ever tucked into one of my mom’s wreaths, mostly because the rest of her door is all leaves and ribbon and I wanted something that did not look like more leaves. I printed a cluster of them, cut close around the caps, and propped the card behind the front sprigs so just the tops peeked through. People kept leaning in to look.
The red caps land right in her deep-red-and-cream range without any fussing, which is half the reason I keep coming back to this set. I trimmed mine with cuticle scissors to keep the edges tight against the wreath, then cold-laminated so the porch damp would not warp them again.
One nitpick: a couple of the smaller mushrooms print so pale they wash out against cream paper. I printed those two at a higher saturation on a second pass and used the darker copies instead.
A Black Cat for the Reading-Nook Door
My mom does a second, smaller wreath for the door to her sewing room, and that one gets sillier than the front. A bookish black cat with a little stack of books was exactly the kind of thing she would never buy but loves once it is up. I printed it small, maybe four inches, and wired it low so it sits in the bottom curve of the frame like the cat is reading on a shelf.
The black reads as a solid shape from across the room, which is good, because it gives the eye somewhere to land between all the cream. I kept the cardstock to 110 lb so the small piece would not flop forward.
The nitpick here is the whiskers. They are thin and pale and basically vanished on my first print. I bumped the contrast and reprinted, and even then I went over them with a fine black pen so they would actually show at door distance.
The Pencil Sign for My Sister the Teacher
My sister teaches third grade and asked if I could make her a center piece for the wreath on her classroom door. This leopard-print pencil with the coquette bow was an instant yes from her. I sized it to about six inches, printed it on the heavy cardstock, and she zip-tied it into a grapevine wreath the school already owned.
The bow and the warm leopard tones do not match my mom’s strict red and cream, but for a classroom door that is fine, and honestly the softer palette read well against the brick hallway. I cold-laminated this one too because a hundred kids would be brushing past it.
Nitpick: the file came through with a fair bit of empty space around the pencil, so the pencil printed smaller than I wanted on a 5×7 sheet. I cropped in tight before printing to fill the frame.
Luna and the Sunflower Center
This is the second cat in the batch and the one that ended up on my own door, not my mom’s. A little black cat next to a sunflower, more September than November, so I run it early in the season before the deep-red wreath goes up. I printed it, backed the card with chipboard so it would stand up to the wire, and set it dead center.
The sunflower yellow is the loud part, so I leaned into it and skipped any other bright color on the wreath that week. Against plain cream paper the cat and flower both pop without me doing much.
One thing: the sunflower has a lot of fine petal detail that my tired inkjet smeared on the first try because I grabbed the card before the ink had dried. Gave the reprint a full ten minutes flat on the counter before laminating and it was clean.
A Teddy Bear for the Nursery-Door Wreath
A neighbor asked my mom for a wreath for her new baby’s room door, and the center had to be soft and not spooky like half of fall decor. This whimsical teddy bear with little leaves was the answer. I printed it on cardstock, rounded the corners of the card with a punch so there were no sharp edges near a crib, and wired it gently into a small wreath.
The bear’s warm brown sits next to cream without clashing, and we kept the ribbon a muted rust so nothing got too loud for a nursery. I used a matte finish here instead of glossy laminate so it would not throw light from the hallway lamp.
Nitpick: the bear’s outline is light, almost no dark edge, so on cream paper it floated. I printed a faint shadow behind it from a second graphic to give it a footing.
Football Saturday on the Garage Door Wreath
My mom puts a beat-up wreath on the side garage door during football season, the one nobody photographs, and it deserves a center too. This game-day football print is exactly right for it. I printed it big, almost the whole 8.5×11 sheet, because the garage door is far from the walk and small art gets lost out there.
The brown and the bit of red in it actually slide into her usual palette better than I expected, so it did not look out of place when the front wreath was deep red. I cold-laminated it heavy because the garage side takes the wind and the rain straight on.
The nitpick: printed large, the football laces showed every pixel and looked a little soft up close. From the driveway it is fine, but I would not size this one big if it were going on a door people stand right in front of.
A Woodland Crew Across the Whole Frame
Instead of one center image, this woodland animal set let me do something different on my mom’s wide front wreath. I printed a fox, a hedgehog, and a little deer separately, cut each one out, and wired them at different heights around the inside of the frame so they peek out from the sprigs like they wandered in.
The rusty fox and the warm browns play nicely with her cream, and the pop of red I added with the ribbon tied the whole thing back to her palette. Each cutout got the cold-laminate treatment so the porch humidity would not curl them this time.
Nitpick: cutting three animals out by hand around all those little ears and legs took me a full evening and my thumb was sore after. If you have a cutting machine, this is the file to use it on.
The Pumpkin-and-Bow Greeting Card
Sometimes my mom wants actual words in the center of the wreath, a little hello for people coming up the walk. This hello-fall print with the pumpkin and bow does that without being one of those signs that screams a slogan at you. I printed it at 5×7, slid it into a small frame, and wired the frame into the wreath so it sits like a tiny picture in the greenery.
The pumpkin orange leans a touch bright for her strict red and cream, so I swapped the wreath ribbon to a deeper red to balance it, and that pulled it together. Heavy cardstock, cold-laminated, two holes for the wire.
The nitpick: the lettering is fairly thin, and at door distance the smallest words got hard to read. I would have liked a slightly bolder text, so I picked a frame with a wide mat to make the card itself feel bigger and closer.
A Preppy Goose for the Front Wreath
My mom did not know she wanted a goose in a bow on her front door until I wired one in. This preppy fall goose with the coquette ribbon was a gamble and it landed. I printed it about six inches tall, cut tight around the bow, and set it just off-center so it leans toward whoever is coming up the steps.
The goose is cream and white, which sounds like it would disappear against cream paper, but the red bow does all the work and ties straight into her palette. I cold-laminated it and the white stayed crisp.
Nitpick: being mostly white on white, the goose needed a defined edge or it blurred into the card. I printed it on a very pale kraft-tone background instead of bright white so the body had something to sit against.
The Round It’s Fall Y’all in the Middle
This one is round, made to read like a sign, so it was the obvious pick for filling that empty hole in the middle of my mom’s wreath that started this whole habit. I printed it, mounted the circle on a chipboard backer so it would hold its shape, and wired it dead center where the bow usually goes.
The round shape echoes the round of the wreath, which I did not plan but really liked once it was up. I kept the print in red and cream so it read as part of her door and not a sticker slapped on top. Cold-laminate, always, after the first bubbling disaster.
Nitpick: it is designed as a wind spinner with a hole at the top, and that hole sat awkwardly once the sign was flat in a wreath. I printed a small cream circle and glued it over the hole on the front so the center looked finished.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to make fall decorations with corn stalks?
My mom bundles three or four dried corn stalks together, ties them with twine about a third of the way down, and leans the bundle against the porch post next to the front door so it frames her wreath. She fans the tops out a little so they catch the light.
If you want them to last past one windy week, drive a garden stake into the bundle and zip-tie the stalks to it, then set the whole thing in a heavy planter. A printed center sign on the door plus a corn-stalk bundle on the post makes the entry read as finished without buying anything big.
Can I print these at home?
Yes, that is the whole point. I print all of mine at home on a tired inkjet and 110 lb cardstock, and the heavy paper is what keeps a wreath center from flopping forward in the frame.
If your printer runs low on red or the colors come out flat, the library printer is a fine backup, and a lot of them will run cardstock if you ask. Just give the ink a full ten minutes to dry before you laminate or the fine detail smears.
What file formats do these designs come in?
Most of these come as PNG and clipart files, which is exactly what you want for a wreath center, since you are printing an image rather than cutting vinyl. I drop the file into a document, size it to fit my frame or wire opening, and print.
A few, like the round sign, come set up at a fixed size, so check the listing before you assume it will fill an 8.5×11 sheet. If it prints smaller than you hoped, crop in tight to the art before printing.
Do I need a Cricut or Silhouette to use these?
No. Everything here I cut out with regular scissors, and for most of these I cut close around the edge by hand and it took a few minutes per card.
The one exception is the woodland animal set, where cutting three little creatures with all their ears and legs ate up a whole evening. If you own a cutting machine, that is the file to feed it, but you can absolutely get through all of these with scissors and patience.
Before You Print
The wreath my mom has remade every fall for thirty years finally has a middle she stops fussing over, and it cost her a sheet of cardstock and ten minutes of my time. She still acts like she invented the idea. I let her.
If you try one, start with the round sign or the mushrooms, wire it in loosely, and step back to the sidewalk to check it before you commit. And use the cold-laminate sheet the first time. I learned that one the hard way off a humid porch.
