Determine how big you want your wreath to be. Holding your pool noodle, twist it into a loop and mark the noodle at the size you want for your wreath. With the pool noodle held straight on a steady surface, use your serrated knife to trim the noodle to your desired length.

Stick your wooden dowel (or your tape-wrapped pencil) into the hole in one end of the pool noodle.

Twist your pool noodle back into a loop again and insert the dowel into the hole in the other end of the noodle. This forms the ring-shaped base for your wreath.

Secure your joint by wrapping it with duct tape.

If you wish, you can cover the entire ring with duct tape. This will give you a great base to work on, but it is not necessary.

Now you need to make your "house-shaped" pieces. Rip or cut a piece of duct tape into a two-inch square.

Fold down two of the corners into the center to form a "house-shaped" piece that still has a strip of stickiness exposed!

You're going to need to make a LOT of these house-shaped pieces! It's a good idea to create a bunch all at once, and stick them to a sticky-safe surface (like a cookie sheet or piece of fabric stretched over a frame) to save for the next step.

These house-shaped pieces are your wreath's leaves. Take one of your pre-made leaves and stick it to the side of your ring. Then take another leaf (it could be the same color, or an alternating color if you want to make a pattern) and stick it to the wreath, slightly overlapping the first one. You want this layer of leaves to be the same height, but with each leaf overlapping the one on its side as shown in the picture.

Once you're done with your first layer of leaves around your wreath, create another layer by sticking more leaves (once again overlapping them on the sides) slightly above the first. Make sure that the layers aren't too close together that you hide the leaves below, but not too far apart that you can see gaps between them. To "stagger" your leaves, have the point of the leaf on the upper layer point down into the gap between the two leaves below it.

Keep creating layers of leaves until you've covered your entire pool noodle.

To create a hanger for your wreath, take a pipe cleaner and bend it into a V-shape. Then take the "legs" of your V and bend those into loops, as shown in the picture. This gives you a pointed hanger, plus two loops that have large surface areas.

Use duct tape to tape the "loops" of the pipe cleaner to the back of your wreath. This will secure the pipe cleaner to the wreath, leaving a small bit of the V-shape exposed for hanging. If you don't have pipe cleaner, you can tie a loop of ribbon, string, or yarn and tape that to the back of your wreath!

All that's left is to add a bow and your wreath is ready for the front door!