I'm Leafing.....

Today is Wednesday. Wednesday is for mini witches. You know the drill. I have to find something to keep me busy while at the meeting.

I decided that the topiary trees for the front of the basket shop would be good. I have started them. I thought that you might like to work along.

This is really a simple project if you want it to be. I am making it a bit more complicated by adding leaves. All you need is Styrofoam in the shape and size that you want the finished topiary to be. Or if you want an animal topiary or something more fanciful, just find yourself a plastic toy or bauble in the shape that you like. I have seen people use the plastic animals that you get by the bag full at the dollar store.

Anyway, in this case, I am using a small Styrofoam ball, some cloth covered wire(probably 28 or 26 gage) and something to use for a pot. In this case I used some teak wood beads that I have and stacked two together. You will also need model railroad greenery, dirt, and if you want to get complicated, a small flower punch or beads and a leaf punch.

I will give you the measurements that I am using for this project. You can change any of them to suit your particular project. You may want larger or smaller.I usually cut 4 pieces of wire about 5" long for each tree. I twist two together at a time. Stick the ends of the doubled wires in the ball about 1/2" apart with fast grab or other thick bodied glue. Then twist the wires together to form a trunk. There will be a V of branches at the top. Paint the trunk brown. Let it dry.

Meanwhile, prepare your base. In my case I just glued two beads together, smeared glue on top where I wanted the ballast and then dipped the bead into that. You can use any dirt that you want. Next, with glue on the end of the wire, stick the trunk into your container. I guess I should have said that you can use a regular pot and fill it with dry floral foam if you wish.

Let this dry until it is easy to handle without the trunk falling out of the container. This is the voice of the impatient 6 year old speaking. Yes, sometimes I rush things and get into trouble. It is much easier to do the rest if you can grab hold of the container to hold while you work.

Paint the Styrofoam ball with Elmer' or other thin bodied glue and roll the ball in your model railroad greenery. I used smooth this time because that was all that I could find. If you are not going to put on leaves it really looks better with rougher greenery. This worked fine because I was going to do leaves on it anyway. I prefer doing this to painting the Styrofoam ball because if you miss a spot with the leaves it still looks good. With paint, if there is a bare spot, you can see it right away and you pretty much have to cover the whole thing with leaves and flowers.

Now you can either put cupped small flowers on it with dots or glue or beads to represent fruit. The one on the left is plain RR greenery. The one on the right is what it looks like about half covered with leaves and flowers. I used my smallest 5 petal punch for the flowers and a small ivy punch for the leaves.

I am taking them with me to the mini meeting to finish covering with leaves. As I said before, I'm leafing now. (sorry about the bad pun)

See you tomorrow with the finished topiary.