The other day I went Christmas decorating shopping with my mom. I'm pretty excited that this is my first house that I get to decorate (ever!). Eeek! and I'm busting with excitement because my hubby is letting me get a real Christmas tree and the house will smell incredible. He was excited about not having to store the honking huge thing, haha. Anyways, we went shopping and it blew me away how much decorations are. I'm going vintage with mercury balls and cardinals look. I about passed out when I saw that they were charging $18 for glittered sticks! So, knowing me, I thought, "No biggy. I can make that WAY cheaper." So I did....and this is the adventure that got me there. Just wait until you see them on my tree. And tonight I picked up more supplies for sticks to match these so be sure to check back and see what I do with more sticks and twigs.
It all started with this unsuspecting bush. I'm not really sure if it is ours or our neighbors' but it had the perfect sticks! I was looking for perfect sticks that look almost fake.
I gave the bush a small trim and gathered all my sticks in the garage. I trimmed them of all little sprouts and made them nice and smooth.
The ones I saw were red, and this is the scheme I was going for anyway. I prepped the floor and gave them the first step by coating them in red spray paint. (Side Note: this has to be a quick process so I'd do this without distractions such as kids, husbands, or pets)
While the paint is still wet, rub the tacky stick in a pan or container or glitter. Roll it around and make sure the the entire stick is covered before it dries.
After the stick is completely covered, you can call it quits or do an extra preventative step. Storing sparkly decorations always ends up in a tub with a bottom full of glitter. To prevent this, I gave my sticks a coat of clear coat. You can choose either gloss, clear, or flat. I did clear to let all my glitter shine through.
The final product was exactly what I was looking for without the high dollar price tag. They are carefully tucked into our basement until I can put up my tree (after the whole gang is here for Thanksgiving feast). I'll be sure to show you how they look on the tree. Be sure to stop back tomorrow to see more "sticks on a budget."
(They have a whole lot more shine in real life, dang those pictures that I don't know how to take)
4 comments:
You are a FREAK!!! Love them!!!!
Thanks for the insult Mom!
I love sticks and branches and decorate with them constantly, both inside and out. Good job on these.
A tip: Line up your sticks in a row and hit them with the spray paint all at once. You'll use far less paint that way. It also will work well to have them lined up when you add the glitter. Try a spray adhesive and then sprinkle the glitter over them.
If you're interested, I have some "Sticks" posts at my blog.
I'm like, quiting work right now so I can go home and make an entire trees worth of these.
:)
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