Topiary Trees

I saw this tutorial on Pinterest and immediately fell in love (as usual).  And (as usual) it was a project that took waaaaayyyyy longer than I ever expected.  Who knew that I'd be rolling up streamers for a good eight hours?!?!  Thank goodness I have the awesomest kiddo in the world who did not require a whole lot of attention (I can roll and play choo-choos like the best of them!) and took an awesome nap.

So first I took my terra cotta flower pots and painted them white.

This was after coat #2....another coat was required.  Depending on the paint you get, you may be able to get away with two coats.  And don't you just love the pinkness in the background?  That's going to be the center of my Valentine's Day mantle.  I took a foam board, cut it down into a 17" square, took a half yard of pink chevron fabric and thumb tacked it to the board on the backside.  Then I took the cute, heart, hangy thing (I want to call it a wreath but that is clearly not correct) and thumb tacked it too.  So stinkin easy and adorably cute.  Ok back to the trees...

Then I started constructing the topiaries.  I took 6" styrofoam balls and inserted a wooden dowel into them.  I painted the dowel a brownish color so it sort of resembled a tree trunk.  I stuffed floral foam in the bottom of the pots to hold the dowels in place.

Then it was time to start cutting the streamers.  I went through about 200 yards of streamers for just one topiary.  Ugh.  I still have to make the second topiary because I ran out of streamers and glue gun sticks.  Hopefully I get it done by Valentine's Day!  I cut each streamer to one yard in length.

Then, you fold the streamer in half longways and start rolling, glue the end, then glue it to the styrofoam ball...and repeat like a bagillion times. 

It looks really cute when it's full!

Adding some pearls just screams Valentine's Day and the Spanish Moss works so well in the bottom.  Had I had a little more patience, I would have put a pearl on each bud because the sporadicness is driving me nuts since they are not perfectly spaced!!

But, I'm glad I got one down and now it's on to the second one.  I'm on a mission to have it done in the next 15 days :-)