The Troublesome Craft + topiary tutorial

Oh, this project was a pain in the you know where!
I’ve seen adorable topiarys all over blogland. Jen from Craft-o-Maniac always has fabulous ones.

So I thought I would make one to display on our island.
Easy, right?!
Apparently I was wrong!

This project took me forever because I kept running out of what I was using and had to go to Michael’s 3 days in a row. Not fun!
But it is complete now, and I love them.

My little vignette on our island.

Here is a how-to for the tall topiary. Super simple!
Supplies:
-Container (pot, bucket, anything will work. I got mine in the $1 section at Target.)
– Dowel
-Styrofoam ball
-Styrofoam half round
– Cupcake liners or felt (mini cc liners are pictured.)
-Ribbon
-Hot glue (low temp works best)

Trim the half round styrofoam to fit into the bottom of your bucket.

Center the dowel rod and just push it into the styrofoam. Hot glue to hold.

Push styrofoam ball onto the dowel.

Take a liner and hold the edge. Place glue on the bottom.

Begin gluing at the bottom of your styrofoam ball working your way up.

And this is where everything goes wrong!
I RAN out of cupcake liners! Ahhh! See the bald spot on top! Not good!
So off to Michael’s the 2nd day in a row to go get more.
And guess what… They don’t have anymore of the ones I am using! Why did everyone want to buy these?! So now what?!

Well… I had a small terracotta pot, painted it white, and just flipped the ball over. PERFECT FIT!! Filled the hole where the dowel was with one on the bottom and DONE!

But I still wanted a tall one so on to plan B.
Felt! I cut out felt circles in pink and purple.

I put a little dot of glue in the center and then brought up the sides to make it more petal like. This way they would stay how I wanted them once glued onto the ball.

Again, start at bottom and work up.

But guess what?! I RAN OUT OF PURPLE FELT! UGH!
So back to Michael’s the 3rd day in a row to get more to finally finish it!!

In the mean time, I moved onto another project.
I saw these Mailboxes on Crafts and Sutch and fell in love.
So I bought a small red mailbox from Michael’s (on one of my trips).
I wanted it to go with my pink and purple color scheme so I took scrapbook paper and cut strips.
I sprayed them with spray adhesive and just placed them on.

I then cut out some vinyl with my cricut to decorate it more.
Hugs and Kisses on one side. And Love Notes for the front.

And a small heart for the flag.

I did eventually finish my tall topiary too. I just cut more strips of the same scrapbook paper that I used on the mailbox and crinkled it to cover the styrofoam in the bottom of the bucket.

I love how they each turned out and they look so cute together!

When the flag is up it means “You got Mail!”
Travis and I have been leaving each other little love notes in it.
Great way to show each other we care.

Close up of the original topiary. Totally looks like I planned this doesn’t it?! hehe

And a shot of my tall topiary.

Even though these turned into a total pain, I love how they came out.

Linking up to some of these linky parties.