Cone Christmas Trees Repost

This is a post from last year in December. 

I love Christmas. Such a joyous and fun time of year. And the wonderful decorations everywhere.

Are you looking for a fairly simple project to make holiday decorations? Well, this one is just that. It’s pretty simple and might be fun for the kids.

One of my favorite projects that the disabled group did during the holidays one year was to make cone trees. They covered the cones with felt or fabric and then glued pasta to them. Some pasta was painted with acrylic paint, others, like the farfalle (bow tie) was just glued on. (with a glue gun)

The trees were beautiful and I even made one at home for myself.

The three trees shown here were done in just a few hours with my glue gun. The first one I did was covered with green fabric and then tulle. I ran red and green ribbons down from the tip and then added small rhinestones as accents. The gold garland is actually a Mardi Gras necklace that I glued on.

The second one is the purple stretch velvet tree. I used an old necklace chain for the garland and washers from the hardware store for the ornaments. The top is more washers capped with a covered nut. Obviously I had Steampunk in mind when making this one.

The third tree was covered with felt that was cut into pieces. It took almost two large squares of felt and I started at the bottom and cut the upper layers smaller as I went. The garland is from the mini Christmas tree decorations you can buy at the craft store. The ornaments are glass pony beads. Once they were on I put gold glitter glue into the centers to make them sparkle.

To make the trees, I started with a piece of illustration board, cut to create a cone. Tape helped me keep it in shape while I used the glue gun to set it. The tape can be left on as an added support, or taken off once the glue sets.

For the velvet and striped trees, a piece of fabric was cut just a little larger than the tree cone and one edge was turned and glued to create a nice finish. The unfinished edge was glued first and then I worked my way around the cone. The bottom was snipped to make gluing easier.

The stars on the top of the tall trees are polymer clay. The clay was rolled out to about a quarter inch thickness and a star cookie cutter was used to cut the shapes. Then a skewer was used to put the hole in the bottom. Both stars were dusted with Ranger embossing powders for color and glitter. They were baked with the skewers in place to prevent the holes from collapsing while hot. They were glued on the trees with E6000 glue. I did put a chenille stem into the hole in the top and glue it down, then left a piece sticking up to glue into the hole in the bottom of the star. This helps to keep the star stable.

Cone trees can be any color, any fabric. You can decorate with whatever you want. You could cover them with feathers, glitter, stars, pasta, or wrap chains all around. The decoration is totally up to you.

This is a fun project. You can decorate with one, three or a dozen. They could even be given as gifts. Decorate your desk at work. Put a small one on the bathroom counter. One for every room in the house.

 

If doing this one with the kids, you may have to help with the hot glue gun. But they will love making a tree for their room or to help decorate the house.

Let your imagination go wild. And make it messy, of course.

Til next time. J

Terri

Supplies used in this blog are available at www.Michaels.com, www.HobbyLobby.com, www.Joanns.com, or your local craft supply store.

Refinished Basket

This week I have been re-arranging my studio. It is still a place for me to work on my projects. But more importantly, it is now a space for meditation, healing and readings. I needed to make more space.

My husband and I are Reiki Master Teachers and we needed space for clients to sit during healing sessions. Now we have it.

So, while cleaning I found this great basket. I typically use it for display purposes. But it had gotten beaten up a little and I did not want to throw it away. So I repaired it and made it stronger. It measures 7”x18” and is 3” deep.

The basket is made with some light weight wood with the bamboo strips woven over it. The strips had broken and the ends were coming off. I had glued it together once before and painted it. But it needed more this time.

I started by using my hot glue gun to reattach all the broken parts. This is just to hold everything together while I do the next step. The hot glue would not stand up to any long term use, especially since one of the corners was completely torn and would never last.

Next up I pulled out some lightweight muslin and tore it into strips of different sizes. Tearing the fabric creates rough edges that would give a great texture later.

I used some ModPodge that had been diluted with a little water to attach the strips of muslin all over the basket. I wanted to reinforce the corners and cover the entire basket with the fabric. I used a paper mache’ technique by putting the ModPodge into a bowl and dipping the strips of fabric into it. Then I squeezed out the excess just enough to keep it from dripping. This let me be sure the fabric was saturated with glue and would stick nicely. It would also help with the reinforcement of the basket.

 

This project took pretty much the entire bottle of ModPodge. The muslin was mostly scraps, but it

took at least a yard. I used the matte ModPodge because it will be underneath the paint. You could use white glue instead, it is cheaper. The acrylic paint makes it water resistant. You would be able to wipe it with a damp cloth when needed. But you would not want to soak it in water.

I worked on one end, let it dry, then did the other end. It was easier than trying to figure out how to do the whole thing at once without getting glue everywhere. 

I did one layer then went back and did a second one for strength. I

also wanted to get to where the dark paint underneath didn’t show through the fabric which would tell me I had two layers and it would be nice and strong..

Once all the glue was dry I painted the whole thing with a tan color (acrylic paint). This was just to create a background and a primary coat of paint over the fabric. I painted the inside first and let it dry. Then I painted the outside. This makes it easier to handle and since the paint dries in about fifteen minutes it goes fairly quickly.

Then it was time to get creative. This meant coming up with some sort of paint scheme. This is always where I get bogged down. I have too many ideas and am never sure which one will look the best.

I decided to do something similar to the serving tray I painted last year.

So I painted the ends, inside and out, with black. I also painted the bottom black. Then I used the bottom of the serving tray as my example to paint the inside of the basket. I used a light brown to draw on the lines and circles and then painted it.

I let the paint dray a couple of days before I sprayed the whole thing with a sealing varnish.

Obviously this took several days to paint but it looks cool and will make a great display.

Til next time. J

Terri

Stop by my Etsy shop for new arrivals www.etsy.com/shop/1krazyrtist