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Jambalaya Boxes

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It’s that time of the year when tourists descend upon New Orleans like a bunch of drunk and shirtless locusts. Middle aged conventioneers with names like Stew and Skip take up with sorority girls, frat boys, and Lousianans alike in America’s spring break: Mardi Gras. Yes, it’s that time of year, but it isn’t all bad for the good people of NOLA — they get free jewelry.
And by jewelry, I mean beads. 
Lots of beads.

Hippy Ti Yo beads!

Mardi Gras is the only holiday I know in which people throw shiny things off of floats and hang said shiny things on trees and doors and fences and anyone who will flash a tata or two. If anyone else knows of another free jewelry holiday, YOU LET ME KNOW, OKAY?

It’s been a few years since I have been to New Orleans for the season, but last time I prepared as best I could by grabbing beads enough for ten people plus half of Jackson Square. Plus, I get abuncha green ones around here every St. Patrick’s day, plus the occasional bag full of beads in the thrift store now-and-again…plus…well, put it altogether, and I am always stocked with a drawer full of Mardi Gras beads. No, literally, there is a drawer labeled MARDI GRAS BEADS. It comes in handy more often than you would think.
This year, considering Fat Tuesday is February 12, I thought it would be fun to mash it with its neighboring holiday—Valentines, on February 14.  The end result is a glitzy chocolate box with Cajun flair that I can use to harness my sparkle tooth. Of course you could use it to give away cookies or homemade treaties…I have my sparkles to think of. 
Like the creole dish they were named for, these boxes are an eclectic jumble of decadent elements. Jambalaya is also a popular song and a line dance (click here to learn en français!). The idea came to me after thinking of other songs to use describe this project. For a while I’d call them I Left My Heart in Louisiana Boxes but decided that would be too tacky. Not nearly as tacky as Cajun Stripper Boxes, (the beloved Doug Kershaw song), but that’s a personal call.

So, the question is, how do you make one of these nifty boxes for yourself? Read on!

What will I need?
  • Heart shaped box, salvaged for free or buy new box (and eat all chocolates)— Target is selling these Snoopy Whitman sampler boxes for 99cents. Or you can also make your own.
  • Thick white glue, $2.00
  • Hot glue, 50cents (assuming you already have a glue gun)
  • Mardi Gras beads, recycled for free or buy a dozen at the dollar store – $1.00
  • Miscellaneous beads, salvaged from broken jewelry, etc
  • Seed beads, $1.00
Total cost: $2.50 – $6.00
Total Time: 20 minutes to assemble, dry overnight
How will I make it?
After removing any bows or frills or extra fabric from the top of the box, rim the edge of the box in a single line of hot glue and beads. 
Filling the heart is entirely up to you. It’s a jumble. Jambalaya. 
I put the center focus on an old heart shaped collar tag, then scattered a few chunky pieces of faux turquoise, and encircled each piece in a single row of Mardi Gras beads. Then I used other larger, single beads to form bridges in between each cluster, then wound more plastic beads around those…eventually forming a thick path of beads the wound all over the heart. To fill in the gap spaces, I used a thick white glue and liberally sprinkled inexpensive seed beads. 12 hours to dry, and it’s ready to go!
 You can tell the glue is still drying on this one as it’s not 100% clear just yet. In retrospect I probably could have painted the box beforehand, but who has time for that when they are staring at a giant pile of sparkly beads?
My mother used to keep her jewelry in a ruffly pink chocolate box. There was a crushed velvet rose on top and the inside was segregated into a grid of waxed cardboard dividers which made it great for earrings or small items. I’m very loosy-goosy with most of my jewelry, and none of it is real, but some of it is old enough that I don’t want them bumping around and losing stones. These little candy linersare just the thing!
 That center heart piece was from the collar of my first cat, Sam. He was an all-white longhair kitty that weighed in at 22 pounds. I named him Sam after my childhood idol, Samantha from Bewitched. 
So the good news is I now have four nifty boxes to sort and store my baubles. The bad news has made me hungry for the last thing I need right now — more beads.

Anybody else have some ideas on how to use up old beads?

Wax Paper Pillar Candles

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Have you ever been to one of those hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurants with red checkered table cloths and big drippy candles in Chianti bottles? You know the ones that dribble wax all over the bottle? It builds and builds and builds up over time and it looks sort of creepy but you let it go because you think This is just like Lady and the Tramp!

Well, this post is like that except with Shabbat candles and diet coke bottles. Romantical much? And no dripping wax. And no Lady. And no Tramp.

Hashtag Disappointed.

Hashtag WhoWillEatSpaghettiWithMe?


Last month, a reader, Guinevere, asked me about the candles featured in a post from last fall. It didn’t occur to me to do a tutorial on it but since I was setting the table this weekend, I thought I’d do a quick demo. This is a cheap and easy way to get some height on your table without buying a bunch of expensive candle sticks.An it involves drinking abuncha soda and a trip to the ‘Ethnic Foods’ aisle. Wahoo!

The hard part with this is finding candles and bottles that fit perfectly. Too big and they are useless– too small and the candle slips inside the bottle. I have found that most soda bottles fit perfectly with Shabbat candles* but you experiment and see for yourself. Some larger long stem candles fit in beer bottles, or sometimes you can use a butter knife to whittle the bottoms (or use an open flame to melt it down) to make them fit, but this is one combo that always works.

*What are Shabbat candles? Traditionally lit by the woman of the home 18 minutes before sunset each Friday, Shabbat candles are are part of most Jewish households. You can buy a whole box of them in the kosher food section of most grocery stores for $2.00, sometimes less. They burn clean, no drips, and last 2 to 3 hours.

They look really good bundled together on a glass cake plate or platter, just don’t bundle too close. Hello fire hazard! Although no paper is fire proof, wax paper is slightly safer as the melting wax will smother the flame and prevent a full out flare up. But still. Don’t catch fire y’all. Smokey says so.

***

So there it is Guinevere, I hope that helps!

Anybody else have a follow-up question on something you saw here? Send me an email…it might make for a future post! 


Confetti Mirror

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I had big plans for a New Year project featuring confetti but then a Julie Andrews marathon came on the TV. There went my Sunday.

Honestly, how is one supposed to craft with Julie being all Mary Poppins and nun like and such? You can’t just Climb Every Mountain and use scissors at the same time. That’s just flat out unsafe.

Since I had already made three pounds tissue paper confetti, I decided it was going to be used elsewhere. Somewhere. So this weekend I made about five different things. Prepare yourself to get confettid out! You’ll see the rest of them later, but for now, while my carpet looks like the aftermath of a clown convention, I thought I’d start easy: a mirror.

Instructions on this are easy.


Just smear the frame in a heavy coat of glue, pour on the confetti and call it a day. The only trick is to use thick white glue (I am fond of Aileen’s Quick Dry Tacky Glue), and not the regular school stuff, otherwise the water in the glue will sink in the tissue and it will flatten out into mush and bleed pigment all over the place. Pleasant.

 After letting it dry overnight, I ran my fingers all over the surface to get off the loose bits. I even grazed it with  the vacuum cleaner hose just to be sure. How often does one implement the vacuum cleaner in the artistic process? Not often enough!

$1 Tinsel Purse

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I’m not big on dressing for the holidays. Unless it’s an ugly Christmas sweater with a cat on it, in which case, I am down.

This last weekend, sadly, my kitty sweater was at the cleaners. I needed to dress up my usual uniform (black jersey and big earrings) with something festive. Something fun. Something cheap.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present my $1 Tinsel Purse:

This was so easy. I mean, crazy easy. If you can work a hot glue gun, you can make this in under five minutes.

This all started with a brown satin purse that matched a bridesmaid dress from a couple of years ago. It’s actually a pretty nice purse but I don’t have much call for brown ballgowns (unless you count that time I walked to 7-11 to buy a frozen pizza  wearing my bridesmaid dress and flip-flops….but even then I needed a bigger purse to hold my wallet, phone and beef jerky. I know right? Conundrum.)

If you don’t have a bridesmaid purse laying around you could raid your closet or pick one up at the thrift store for a buck. Even the dollar store has cheapo evening purses. The dollar store is where I found this tinsel garland, and they also sell beaded garland too. If your purse did not have a handle it would be easy to substitute for an over-sized bracelet of beaded garland, or heck, why not use a real bracelet?  Doesn’t everyone have a tacky beaded bracelet from their Aunt Thelma? I have three! No offense, Aunt Thelma.

Good for Christmas and New Years shindigs galore.  Party down!

 

 

The Pajaki Has Landed

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There is a Polish expression: Błogosławiony dom w którym pająki są, which roughly translates to: God blesses the home with a spiderweb in it.
Or something like that.
That expression there is the crux of the pajaki (prounounced Pie-Yonky). Pajakis are a traditional Polish folk art made to look like elaborate spiderwebs. The literal translation is spiders of straw. To you or me they look like paper chandeliers, but to spiders, apparently they look like big glitzy condominium. So, my dining room is like Las Vegas for arachnids. Who knew?
Okay, I know what you are thinking; Spiderwebs at Christmas? Seriously? That’s sort of gross. You want me to put a web in my house for real?
Yes real.
For one thing, The Baby Jesus liked spiders. So there. And, in fact, tinsel is symbolic of the spiderweb that protected Mary and Jesus from Herod in a cave one scary night (read more about this according to The Gospel of Matthew).
And for another thing, Dude, spiders are lucky. And not just at Christmas. And spiderwebs are even luckier. If you find an abandoned spiderweb intact, you are Go-Buy-A-Lotto-Ticket lucky. But— and listen here because this part is important—if you tear, damage, or remove a spiderweb in any way, you will not have good luck. Getting rid of spiderwebs is very bad joojoo. Very bad.  I once saw a neighbor woman clean spiderwebs off her garage door and the very next day she was in a car accident. I’m not even kidding. She was fine but the car was wrecked and it all could have been prevented had she just left that spider alone to live in peace in his web. This is why people are scared of them – spiders will take you down to Chinatown if you mess with them.
In conclusion: be nice to spiders. Not just because it’s bad joojoo, but because it’s what Jesus would do.
Spiders and Christmas trees go together. Believe it!
If you did not notice, I have strong opinions about all things superstitious. Old, new, whatever. I make them up as I see fit. Don’t pay attention to me. I also think it is unlucky to let the phone ring four times or to open a bag of potato chips with a ragged edge. I can’t sleep without rubbing my feet together for good luck. I have issues. It’s because I’m Polish. Not really. I mean yes, I am part Polish but that’s not why I have issues. Should we start talking about the craft now? Okay. Here we go…
I made this on the fly so exact quantities here are not listed. The good news is that with the exception of the circle base, I didn’t purchase any special items for this project. All in, this pajaki cost me exactly $1 to make. My prababcia would be so proud!
Materials
  • 150ish 2” lengths of drinking straws. I used thin red coffee straws, but any plastic or paper straw would work. Traditional pajakis would be assembled using straws taken from the hollow shafts of rye grass.
  • 150ish paper circles cut from sturdy paper. I used the scraps of a previous project that used card stock. I also added some circles cut from tissue paper and wax paper, but I used those to double up on the sturdier stuff. You could also skip circles and make geometric shapes or flowers or something fun. In retrospect, circles seem a little boring now.
  • 1 lightweight wire circle. I went to the thrift store and bought an 18” paper lampshade for $1, then tore off all the paper. You could use a wreath form, a hula hoop, or maybe something from the garden center. Whatever it is, just make sure it lays in a perfectly flat circle. You could make your own out of a coat hanger or something but if it’s even a teensy bit off, it will throw off the balance of the final piece. So beware the non-symmetrical circle.
  • Bias tape, ribbon, or twine. If you use ribbon, make sure it is thin and flexible (satin would work better than grosgrain).
  • One thick needle and strong thread. I used dental floss. Upholstery thread would be fine.   
  • One pipe cleaner.
  • Accent flowers. I made mine from coffee filter flowers I had leftover from easter. You could use fiesta flowers made from tissue, or cupcake liners, or just buy some silk flowers at the dollar store. Anything lightweight will work.
Spiders and chains is the name for traditional Polish Christmas garland and is a forerunner to the paper chains we all made in kindergarten. In this case, it provides the basic framework for the pajaki. I am making mine by alternating small circles (spiders) and straws (chains). I made ten lengths or roughly 60” each.  If your ceilings are not so tall, you might want to cut that back a bit.
1. After finishing ten lengths of garland, I tied them all to a single pipe cleaner and wrapped it around the bottom of my chandelier.  If you don’t have a chandelier hanging around, put a thumbtack at the top of the doorway or something.  Do whatever you need to do to get them hanging upright. 2. Wrap the ribbon around the wire circle as tightly as possible. Secure with a dab of glue or knot in place accordingly. 3. Cut ribbons into 3” lengths and tie one to each garland in the same spot.
Moving one at a time, tie the 3” lengths of ribbon around the hoop. Skip from side to side with each knot. If you can imagine the wire circle was the face of a clock, start at 12, then skip to 6, then 3, then 9, then 1, and so on…. Does that make sense? I hope so.
The base is done! Now it’s time to embellish with flowers. I cut my flowers from pre-dyed coffee filters left over from other projects, plus a couple of cupcake liners stapled together (see here for more). You could use tissue paper or wrapping paper, or whatever you want. You could even go to the dollar store and buy a bunch of fake flowers. Your call, just make sure they are lightweight.
This Christmas, I hung my pajaki around an existing pendant light in my dining room by wrapping the pipe cleaner around point where the hanging wire meets the ceiling cap. It held just fine but I covered it with a thin strip of duct tape just be sure. If this were going to hang for more than a few weeks I would probably figure a way to cover the bare bulb, but for now I’m OK with it. Maybe next year I’ll come up with a better plan. For now, it’s a lovely mobile.
 It’s strange how something can look like Christmas and sunflowers at the same time.
Wesołych Świąt Bożego Narodzenia i Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!
(Merry Christmas)

The World’s Easiest Snowflake Ornaments

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Lace. Lace. Lace. I love lace. Always have. Granny crochet lace in particular.  That Duchess gal is doing a good job of making Chantilly lace popular again, which I am rather enjoying, although I fear it will never become massively popular because the good stuff is so darn expensive to make. Even when you buy it by the yard in the fabric store, it ain’t cheap. The good news is you can salvage great lace materials from old doilies in your Granny’s attic, or by taking apart garments from the thrift store. The number of early 90’s prom dresses featuring lace patches is nothing less than astounding.


Above is a sampling of my lace collection. Most of it would never be under consideration for this kind of project, but I have a few scraps that are too tattered to display. Not that I display a lot of lace in my house. I just like to burrow it away. Like a squirrel.

Like a granny squirrel.

Like a granny squirrel in an early 90’s prom gown.

Yeah. 

If you already own a jar of Mod Podge and have an old doily in the attic, you probably already have the materials to make these in your house. Even if you did have to buy all of them, you can still obtain all the materials for this project for well under $5. In my case, one $2.00 lace runner made 60 snowflakes. Yowza!

These require no special skills what-so-ever. Just mix the Mod Podge with water, dunk in the lace and let it soak up all the gluey Mod Podge wonder, then lay it flat to dry on wax paper. It is going to take a while to dry, especially if you are using a thick crochet lace (after it looks dry, you may need to flip it over and give it a few more hours to be sure).  Then, all you need to do is snip it apart, insert a hook or a loop of ribbon, and hang away!

Except for a little glitter, I didn’t dress these up at all, but you certainly could add some paint or beads or glue on some feathers…or….oh why didn’t I think of this BEFORE I took the pictures? What a fun project for a bunch of kids on a cold afternoon?

Okay, I know someone is going to ask this; Can I use regular white glue or starch instead of Mod Podge?

Yes. Sorta. White glue works fine but I like the mild gloss I get from using diluted Mod Podge. More important, Mod Podge has a varnish like quality that makes the final surface semi-water-resistant. If you want these ornaments to last for years and years, it’s worth the extra couple of bucks to buy the Mod Podge. Liquid starch is surprisingly hard to find these days (you can make your own), but it’s a no-no for ornaments that will hang on natural trees that get misted with water (the water is good for the tree — bad for the starch). Just the same, I’ll admit, there is a charming authenticity to old fashioned starch lace. You make the call!

So, who has granny with an attic full of tattered doilies to raid?


 

Custom Glittering Initial Ornaments

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Every year I like to come up with a one-size-fits-all homemade item that I can give to everyone. Something that is inexpensive, easy to make in large batches, personal, impressive, but not so time consuming that I’ll be offended if they toss it come January. Some years it’s a small box of cookies, other years it’s a magnet calendar featuring a photo of my cat. You would be shocked how many people take a pass on magnetic cat calendars I tell you. Shocked.  

So this year I’m making these little ornaments featuring people’s initials. They are special enough to stand on their own, or serve double duty as a package tag. Well color me pragmatic.


Materials

  • Felt Letters (sold at craft stores and teacher supply stores, or just cut your own out of cardboard)
  • Shiny Bits (glitter, beads, rhinestones, sequins, whatever you have on hand)
  • Mod Podge (the regular glue-like kind)
  • Mod Podge Dimensional Magic (I used two kinds with gold and silver glitter mixed in)
  • Wax Paper (optional – for drying)

Instructions
1. Thoroughly coat each letter with Mod Podge and pile high with sparkly bits. 2. Let dry overnight. 3. Use the Mod Podge Dimensional Magic to draw a line around the edge of the shape and let it firm up a bit (30 minutes maybe?) then go back and fill in the rest.

Mod Podge Dimensional Magic is cool stuff. It not only coats and seals all the little sparkly bits, it thickens up and creates an almost resin-like bubble. It dries hard, super shiny and glittery. Instead of looking like a bunch of sequins glued to a felt letter, the finished result looks like an elegant ornament or funkadelic piece of jewelry.  Neato!

I wish you guys could feel these things in your hands. They are smooth and sturdy. I’m confident they will be hanging on someone’s tree for years to come.

This is slightly off topic, but this little tip has made glittering a lot easier / less messy. So much easier than messing around with shallow trays or newspaper, and pouring the excess back in the jar is a cinch. Try it sometime.

###Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post using sample products. The fact that I am being paid to write this post has not influenced my opinion in any way. In fact, if I am really being honest here, I am probably going to use the money I am getting paid to write this post to go out and buy more Mod Podge. Circle of life, baby.  

If you love Mod Podge as much as I do, you can follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Magical Paper Turkey Feathers

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My mother liked to use the term charm bracelet as a verb. That sounds weird but it’s actually a handy thing. You can use it to describe anything that accumulates with purpose over time.

I’m going to charm bracelet my way to a decent set of matching flatware.
When it came to Christmas, the Hendersons took their inspiration from previous generations and charm braceleted a whole new set of family traditions.

After seeing a sign-the-tablecloth last year, I decided I wanted to take a similar charm bracelet approach to Thanksgiving. But because I hardly ever host a Thanksgiving dinner, I wanted something that could hang on display for a few weeks. Something I could build on a little each year. Something festive. Something…turkey.

One of the printers I work with gave me some overrun on a piece that was printed on the most beautiful watercolor paper. It was too gorgeous to throw out, so I got my watercolors out and painted it unicorn colors. Yes, unicorn colors is an established pallete.

The Martha Stewart folks at Plaid sent me some samples of their liquid gilding, and I have to say, it’s pretty good stuff. It stinks, but it’s good. Just a little bit here and there really makes the paper sparkle. Way more effective than gold acrylic but less fussy than genuine gold leaf. Not that anything is wrong with gold leaf, mind you.

No template here, just a quick fold over, some fringe snips along the edge, then a little twist to help ruffle the feathers. Easy Peasy. The hard part is stringing it in a way that doesn’t tangle. I used a simple needle and thread with a few sequins tagged on for sparkle. Because I plan on adding to this each year, I have reconciled with the idea that I will probably need to snip and restring each year. And I’m OK with that. Strong paper and small holes…it’ll be fine.


 I can’t wait for this thing to grow a bit more next year. I’ll be looking for strong-yet-nifty bits of paper all year round. 

 Happy Thanksgiving 🙂





 

Coffee Filter Garland

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One of my co-workers had a baby shower last month. The decorations were a potluck effort, including my contribution — a festive garland to swag around the conference room.

I’ll admit, it didn’t turn out like I expected. But it sure is fun. It was also a great way to use up some of the many hundreds of pre-dyed coffee filters I had left over from Easter and various other craft projects.

And although it took a while to figure out where this was going, this bad boy was surprisingly easy to make. Woot! 

And let’s talk about cheap. Because Whoa Nelly, this is cheap. My little garland here cost absolutely nothing since I was using up existing materials, but, if I had cause or occasion, it wouldn’t take much more than $20 to fill a ballroom with ropes of this stuff. Most grocery stores sell liquid food coloring for $3 a box, and coffee filters are dirt cheap. My dollar store sells 300 for $1, or Costco sells 700 jumbo filters for $2.50. Double woot!

Materials (for 36″ of garland)

  • 100 Coffee filters
  • Food coloring (various shades)
  • Sewing machine


Directions

Separate filters into short stacks of 10 -20, then dip into dye baths composed of one cup water and 20 drops of food coloring. Most food coloring is sold with color recipes on the box (violet = 5 red + 4 blue), so use according to your personal taste. More water = more pastel colors; more food coloring = more vibrant colors (but if you want rainbow quality saturated color, skip food coloring and use fabric dye).

Keeping them in short stacks, dip coffee filters into the dye bath and gently wring out excess liquid while trying not to wrinkle them too much. Hang over a shower curtain rod or laundry line to dry over night (you do not need to separate the stacks).

After all filters are dry, shuffle them randomly and stack them next to your sewing machine. Using regular poly/cotton thread, sew a straight line using a small stitch, inserting small stacks of filters as you go. I found that my machine struggled to sew more than 6 or 7 filters at a time, but less than five filters looked a little too flopsy. If your machine can handle 10 or 12, go for it.


 After all the filters are fringed, the only thing to do is fluff. And fluff. And fluff.


The more horizontal they lay, the more likely they are to lay flat and flopsy. For the record, I sort of like the flopsy ones but it’s a personal preference.

This thing is so fun and festive. Just look at it! You would never know it started as coffee filters. Because of this, frankly, I’m still having a hard time deciding what to call it. Coffee Filter Garland just doesn’t cut it.  The folks on Facebook had a few suggestions;

Caffeinated Christmas – Christopher
The “don’t steal it from my door, please” garland – Kim
Merry Caffeinated Christmahanakwanzika – Shannon
Java Garland – Loren
A rope of fluffy balls – Ann

Hmmm….what say you?


What, you don’t need a whole garland?

Okay, alternative method: After you sew each stack, leave a long thread and snip. Now you can hang the thread from the ceiling/lamp/doorway/etc.. Or, what about hanging on a Christmas tree? Too big? Snip them down. They are just coffee filters. Cut them into smaller circles…or hearts…or stars…or, well crap. Now I have to do another tutorial. This is always how it starts.

These remind me of those beautiful faded honeycomb tissue balls I see at the flea market. I never buy them because 1. I’m already a little too Miss Havisham to be surrounding myself with 50 year old party decorations, and 2. I would probably tear them apart upon opening the box.

It’s nice to know a girl has options.


All Seasons Golden Magnolia Wreath

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I’m taking a unique approach to my holiday decorations this year.

Not unique like Pablo the Burrito Unicorn, I mean unique in that I’m doing it a little different. This year I’m embracing a non-Christmasy approach Christmas decorations.

*GASP*

Yes, I’m still doing up the trees and garlands and the cookies and The Carpenters….but when it comes to making new stuff this year (’cause I make a lot of stuff every year), it’s going to be stuff that lasts a lot longer than a few weeks in December.

Why? Because I am tired of people telling me it’s wrong to have holiday stuff up too early or too late. That’s fine for them, but if I try to cram it all into a few weeks in December, well, I don’t get to enjoy any of it! I’m tired of choosing hot glue over hot toddies. Eff that.

So this year I’m starting early and I’m casting a wide net. I’m making stuff that can be up Halloween to Easter and anytime in-between.

Festive. Spangled. Sparkly.

Don’t tell me you can’t sparkle in March. I’m not buying that crap.

Can I just tell you how HUGE this thing is? Because it’s HUGE. It’s hard to reflect the scale of this thing in pictures. It’s so big I didn’t even have room to hang it in my house so I gave it to my friend Kiki to hang above her Delaware sized sofa. It seats ten people and needed some big artwork to balance, which is good because if I didn’t mention, this wreath is HUGE.

I might need to make another one. A smaller one. Because I had been wanting a squarish gold magnolia wreath for years and I’m a little sad I don’t get to keep this one. I have a long-standing thing for Magnolias and gold is my new best friend. The square concept I picked up from the William Sonoma catalog a while back. My brain mixed them together and a vision was born, although it’s taken me years to put it n motion.

Materials

  • Discarded cardboard boxes*
  • Hot glue or silicone adhesive
  • Gold spray paint (optional)
  • Highly suggested: sturdy kitchen shears

*If I lived south of the Mason-Dixon I probably would have used real magnolia leaves, as they are hearty and plentiful. I can find magnolia trees here in Illinois but the leaves are usually pretty scrawny and have fallen by late September. So instead I used something I had laying around the house: cardboard boxes.

 

Directions
Flatten out your cardboard boxes and cut leaf shapes roughly the size of your hand. Quantity will vary depending on size. I cut out 100 leaves while watching TV over a couple nights, but you could get away with something much smaller. I suggest cutting cardboard with kitchen shears as it’s a lot easier than with regular scissors. My local dollar store sells some that are great for this purpose.

Using an exacto knife or one side of a pair of scissors, score each leaf directly down the middle and fold slightly.


Create the base frame of the wreath by cutting off one side of a large box, leaving a small ridge around the edge. I had to reinforce my frame with a little gold duct tape. Did I mention I like gold?

Before attaching the leaves, poke a couple of holes and slip in a ribbon or pipe cleaner — something you can use to hang it on later.

Use hot glue or silicone adhesive to attach the leaves to the frame one by one, using the 1cm ridge along the edge to help prop up the outer leaves. Mucho dimensional.

*Note: I used hot glue, and that’s fine, but hot glue tends to slowly dry out. If Kiki decides to keep this up over the years, the glue might give out and the leaves would fall off. No bueno. This problem could be avoided altogether if I had been patient and stuck to using big blobs of silicone glue from the hardware store. I may still go back and reinforce the leaves from the back. Learning curve.

Now, had I realized the bare cardboard leaves would look that good, I probably would have taken my time to cut the leaves in a way that excluded bar codes and shipping stickers….but given the situation, I decided to move ahead with spray paint. Gold makes everything better.

That’s it.

It’s big. It’s bold. It’s beautiful.

…and it’s gonna be hanging up there for six months. 

Embrace it, Kiki.

Merry Christmas!