Friday, December 27, 2013

New Years Eve Table Arrangement


 
Put wet foam into a container of your choice and floral tape it onto the container. I used wet foam because I used fresh greenery.

 
Use Christmas greens and insert them into the foam.

 
Keep inserting the greens until it is full.
 
 
I bought the mask at Halloween when all the costumes were selling in the stores. The Christmas balls are small and I wanted them the same color as the mask.
 
 
Floral tape a wood skewer and hot glue onto the mask.

 
Insert the skewer with the mask into the wet foam.
 
 
Fill the rest of the container with whatever you like to put in. I used the purple Christmas balls (attaching 3 at a time), snowflake ornaments, pinecones, and a touch of red just to set off the purple color.

 
To finish it, I tied a purple ribbon onto the container.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Feather Christmas Tree Centerpiece

 
This feather tree centerpiece is so easy to make. You could make them in different sizes for the table or mantle and they look so pretty.
 
 
To make, all you need is a Styrofoam cone, a feather boa, and a jewelled strap. I purchased everything from Michaels.
 
 
The band has adhesive on the back but you will also need to use stick pins.

 
Wrap the boa around the cone and use stick pins where needed. It's that easy!


Thursday, December 12, 2013

Christmas Flower Arrangement With Lights

 

You will need two bowls, one bigger than the other one.

 
You can see how the one fits into the other bowl.

 
You need to make sure that the second bowl with the lights do not get wet.

 
The lights take 3 AA batteries and the church is a tree ornament.

 
Cut up wet foam and fill the first bowl with water. Set the smaller bowl on top and tape using floral tape.
 
 
The lights with battery are in the smaller bowl with NO water. Put evergreens in foam.


 
Place in carnation, roses, mini carnation,
 pinecones, snowflake ornaments.
 

 
Pick the snowflake ornaments and tape.


 
The lighted flower arrangement.


Friday, December 6, 2013

DIY Painted Outdoor Nativity Set

I made this scene about 5 years ago and there is very little fading or chipping on it at all. It has held up really well.

I had bought a book with this pattern but I have also made other outdoor sets with ideas from Christmas cards. If you have access to an overhead projector you can transfer the image from the card onto a pattern quite easily.
 
I bought 1/4" plywood and traced the pattern onto the plywood. With a jigsaw, cut out the pattern.

Even if you're not a painter you can still make this pattern. What you could do is paint the main outline just like you did when you were a kid coloring a coloring book, only use acrylic paint, then get a black felt marker and trace the more detail lines with it. From a distance no one is going to see all the details, so it will look just as good with the black felt marker outline. 

Another way that you could do this is to cut out the pattern with the jigsaw and make it as a silhouette and paint the whole pattern with black paint. 
 

After you finish painting everything, dry overnight and then give them all a coat of varnish. I have found that if you do this, they will last outdoors for many years.









If you notice the screws, what we did was buy some rods at the hardware store and screwed the rods onto the back with 4 or 5 inches sticking out the bottom. This way you can put the rods into the ground and they will stand up without falling over.