Made it in Monday 12/5/11

This week I finally decided to sit down and use my milk glass planters.

I sought them out week after week at the thrift store and was able to collect three of them in the past few months, which was perfect (I have one on my coffee table all year with different flower arrangements).

Originally I wanted to make these:

Source: bhg.com via Kathleen on Pinterest

I love the idea of little sparkly topiaries. But once I actually sit down to read the instructions and remembered the incredible difficulty of making my Starbucks wreath years ago (the hot glue burns are seared in my memory), I passed and made something I was more comfortable with.

Cute paper trees.

Here's the how-to.

I used the largest cone I could find, about 12 inches high and bought it in my local craft store.

I went through my scrapbook paper and pulled out 10 sheets of Christmasy-colored paper. 

I used pieces of My Minds Eye from their Christmas collection a few years ago, Basic Grey Fruitcake and Blitzen, another sheet of Basic Grey (the blue, but not sure what collection), very old 7Gypsies and Die Cuts with a View (the sheets with text) and a random scrap that I don't have a clue who made it (the dark green paisley). In the past I've done these in papers that have nothing to do with Christmas, so you can really use whatever. I think some of the KI Memories with pink and teal would be amazing.

A box of pins was enough for both trees, but I bought two just in case. In the past I used the ones with metal heads, but the pain of pushing them through the paper and cones was pretty intense, so this time I went with the pricier pearl heads. 

A thimble helps avoid that push-the-pin pain.

My cutter is alcohol ink stained...one of these days I'll get around to de-colorizing it.

 For each tree I cut 1''x4'' strips of paper from every sheet. At the end I ended up with a pile of extras. I meant to count, but not really sure how many strips you'd definitely need.

 Then you curve the stips in half, but don't fold them.

Pin them in the top corner at the bottom and overlap the new ones on the earlier added sheets.

 The next layer should cover the pins of the row below it.

You have to think intentionally random placement so it doesn't look perfect, but everything flows at the same time.

 For the top you're left with a blank spot.

In the past I've put buttons on top, and admittedly, that looked sloppy.

 I used American Crafts plastic flowers from years ago, brads from Making Memories and a popsicle stick.

I colored the stick with fast-drying ink. You could paint it, stickle it up with glitter. Anything really.

 I put brads on each of the two flowers that would be sandwiched around the stick.

Hot glue on high heat (cool won't work for plastic I learned) and press em together.

Press the stick into the styrofoam ( you can add some hot glue to the bottom so it's more permanent when added). Then cut one of the medium sized flowers in half and hot glue around the top.

I thought it looked much neater than my older ones.

Place them on the milk glass planters and voila! 

You have some simple paper trees to sprinkle Christmas in your home.

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