Today I am finally able to post a project I have been working off and on for days. I have been working on four different projects at the same time. I had so much gluing and painting, that while one was drying, I worked on another project.

I am so very happy with how my mini Christmas tree turned out that I did a little dance after the final photo shoot.

Materials:

• Bamboo skewers
• Green ribbon in various colors
• Styrofoam ball
• Tacky glue
• Super glue
• Brown paint and paint brush
• Fine green grass turf
• Green felt
• Mod Podge Acrylic Spray

I cut up five spools of various green ribbon (I said in a previous post that you would probably see this ribbon again as I had bought too much of it). They are all six yard spools that I bought for $0.50 each at Joanns. I cut 30 pieces in each color in 3″, 4″, and 5″ long strips. I split these between the three trunks of the tree.

I stuck the bamboo skewer in the Styrofoam ball for stability and handling and started tying on ribbons with simple overhand knots. The ribbons are tied on with the longest, 5″, tied at the bottom, then the 4″, and finally the 3″ pieces at the top. I mixed up the colors as I went along.

Once I had all the ribbons tied, I pushed them all to the blunt end of the bamboo skewer. I dabbed a bit of super glue to the top ribbon to ensure they would not come off the skewer. I added another drop of super glue to the bottom ribbon so they would not slide down.

Next, I cut the Styrofoam ball in half and tested the appearance with the be-ribboned skewers stuck in the half ball.

After a successful test, I knew that I would need some weights added to the bottom to keep it from easily falling over. I grabbed four of my small magnets and drew around them on the underside of the half ball. Then, I cut out the Styrofoam and inserted the weight/magnet. Once I had all four cut out, I glued the weights/magnets into the Styrofoam holes.

I painted the trunks (the exposed bamboo skewers) and the Styrofoam half ball brown. When the paint dried, I covered the top of the Styrofoam half ball with watered-down tacky glue and then coated it with the fine green grass turf (this is used for dioramas and small figures and is fine green dust essentially, you can find this easily at Hobby Lobby).

After the glue dried, I lightly brushed the green turf to remove and loose bits. Quite a bit came off, don’t worry, this is normal. I sprayed the turf covered dome with the Mod Podge Acrylic Spray so that no more of the turf would come off of it. The brown paint showed through and looked like real life pine trees where the grass is thinning due to fallen pine needles. (I actually added a little more brown paint after adding the turf as well, as I really liked this effect.)

Then, I cut a piece of the green felt to fit the bottom of the turf dome and using Tacky Glue, glued it to the bottom of the dome. This would keep it from scratching on any surfaces.

Finally, everything was dry and I stuck my be-ribboned skewers back into the turf covered dome and Voila! It was done.

Happy Crafting!

Kristin