Wreath, flowers and topiary

So this is what I have had on my list forever and finally got it crossed off.  Re-purposing a crappy ivy trailing plant into a cone topiary.  The topiary needs one more vine of ivy or I need to paint the cardboard I used to make the cone because you can see it through the leaves.  I kind of hate styrofoam.  I feel guilty using it, buying it and not to mention it is expensive for craft stuff, so I just made a cardboard cone and then used 18 gauge floral wire and made a tee pee around the cone and hot glued it to the pt to keep it in place.  Then I was able to wrap the ivy around the wire but the cardboard helped keep the cone shape.  Took me 2 attempts to get the shape stable and right.  I was happy with the result.  Now, as always, where to put it.  My house has tacky wood paneling everywhere in the living room so everything clashes with it.  How I long for white walls.


Next, a book wreath.  I have seen these on a few blog tutorials and decided to try my own.  I bought a 25 cent Stephen King novel at a thrift store. Philip said I should feel good about defacing a Stephen King book because they have the equivalent value of a romance novel. Then, since I don't like styrofoam partly because it's expensive and partly because I feel environmentally irresponsible for getting it, I just cut out  2 layers of cardboard in a circle and hot glued them together.  Then I attached the paper to it first the outside row straight, then the inner row and filled in in between as I saw fit. I didn't glue then in rows in attempt to keep them from looking like perfect rows of circles around.  They still kind of did that.  But I used about 500 pages to get this that fluffly.  Took me all day (off and on for kids, eating, etc)  I honestly could have kept going, but I decided I didn't want to work on it another day so I stopped when it was bedtime. I hung this over our bed and hope to make our room around it.  Since we have not even a bed frame, that should be easy.

Lastly, my little flowers.  I made these cute pom poms a week or 2 ago. I was totally inspired by this. Then found an old glass syrup bottle for 25 cents at my new favorite thrift store to put them in. I made 3 but I liked them as a pair in the bottle. They are on my mantle, but the pics are soooo ugly because of the paneling, I decided to move them here to not totally gross you out.  Someday I will take pics of the room completed so you can see them in context.  I loved this craft too and Amelia was excited to let me use her fingers to wrap the yarn around.  They were just the perfect size.  Plus she liked helping me brush it to make it so fluffy.  I want to make a whole field of these with all the leftover ends of yarn I have.

Then I made these adorable little crepe paper flowers. I had a roll of hot pink crepe paper left over from Amelia's birthday party pinata and these Ikea sticks that I have used for a ton of projects and they just keep giving.  I basically used the Martha Stewart tissue paper pom pom idea on a much smaller scale and then glued them to a stick and fluffed.  Since it was crepe paper, they have the veiney look of a real flower.  Kind of a cross between a peony and a carnation.  Then I found these little watering cans for $1 at Potterybarn.  I have wanted them for a while and but didn't want to pay shipping for a $2 decorations so when I happened to browse the store last time I passed one and saw they were marked down to $1 I got 2.  I am kind of wishing I got the big one too and made a little cluster in my faux fireplace with my new topiary. We'll see. Actually I found the cans first and then decided to do the flowers in them.  I have a really bright blue tissue paper and I think I may make some in blue to go in the other one.  First I have to make about 6 or 8 more to fill this can up.  I want it to be a big bundle.  I am having Amelia hold it so you can see the proportion of how small they are.  Just little things.

Next I still want to tackle a cherry blossom branch.   My first attempt was unsuccessful.  I could not even do the origami to get the box shape on a big square, let alone a 2 inch tiny square.  So I may just use tissue paper or even scrapbook paper and just cut them out in a flowery shape and put them on.  Maybe I may have some fabric that would be even better.  The wheels are turning.  Keep you posted.