Well, this project sent me on a bit of a wild goose chase! You see, I had a more natural kind of looking topiary centrepiece in mind. With some natural moss to resemble a nest. But after visiting 2 stores, including a garden centre where I was certain they would have moss in stock, I came home empty handed. OK, maybe hunting for moss at short notice in a pandemic with most shops closed was not the best idea ever! And so I had to improvise. After all, I was making this little beauty in less than 2 hours on a Facebook Live (want to see this being made step by step? – just click on the link to craft along with me!).
Anyway, nothing like a bit of pressure to get creative 🙂 So after a rummage in my craft stash I decided on the following materials to get to work with:
here’s what you need to make your own topiary
1. A polystyrene ball (mine was 9 cm) – I can’t remember where I got mine, but Hobbycraft do slightly smaller ones at 8 cm here. Or slightly larger ones at 10 cm here.
2. Easter eggs – I used 22 of them. I bought mine at The Range at £1.49 for 6. Check your local craft shop for some bargains! If your ball is larger or smaller you will need to adjust the amount of eggs you use.
3. Hot glue
4. Some feather boa material (my alternative to the moss I had been hunting for). The lime one is not available at the moment, but this pink would look equally gorgeous!
5. A stick from the garden (keeping the cost down, but you can use a wooden or plastic dowel if you want and wrap some ribbon around it)
6. A terra cotta plant pot – from our local garden centre at £1.69
7. Some floral foam
8. Some pebbles to weight the pot down
9. And finally some raffia or shredded paper
It sounds like a lot of materials but you can get your hands on most of these on a budget! And some of them you’re sure to have in your home already.
here’s what I did
Like some of my projects I didn’t take any progress photos because I made this one on a Live. BUT, I’ll take you through the steps anway.
I started with adding some pebbles to the bottom of a terracotta pot to weight it down. It’s probably not strictly necessary as the topiary ball wasn’t heavy but I figured it wouldn’t hurt!
Next I packed the floral foam into the pot. Make sure you fill out those edges. You want to make sure there is no room for movement.
And now for the fun part – making your topiary ball! I pushed the garden stick into the ball to give me a reference point as to where it was going to be positioned. I didn’t at this stage attach the stick yet, but of course if you prefer to do this first you can do.
Next I glued the eggs onto the polystyrene ball in a random fashion. Once I had glued the layer around the hole I hot glued the ball onto the stick (because it was getting difficult to hold it at this stage!). Make a hole in the floral foam where you want the stick to go, put some hot glue in the hole, as well as on the stick and push into place. Next, put some hot glue in the hole of the polystyrene ball (that you created earlier) and on the stick. Push the ball onto the stick and hold in place until set.
This left the top half of the ball to complete. Just randomly hot glue the eggs onto the ball. There will be some gaps but don’t worry about these – we’ll be filling these up!
Just a small tip!
Adding hot glue straight to the polystyrene can cause it to melt. Adding the glue to the eggs and then pushing it onto the polystyrene may work better for you!
filling in the gaps
OK, this is where my moss would have come in. But in the absence of moss, I found this feather boa in my craft stash. It was a BRIGHT green, but figured it would work. It had originally bought it for a “Grinch” project at Christmas, but never got round to using it.
To fill in those gaps where the polystyrene is still showing, snip some of the boa and tuck in between the eggs. You can hot glue it down if you need to, but I found it tucked in nicely and wasn’t really going anywhere. Repeat this process all the way over the ball to fill in any bald spots.
finishing touches to complete your topiary tree
I tucked some raffia on the top of the pot, BUT I changed this off the Live! I found some yellow shredded paper which I thought matched the bright colours better.
Finally, I hot glued a pink bow to the stick to finish off the whole project.
And here’s the finished article!
I actually really like how it’s turned out! Just goes to show – sometimes working with an alternative can work out for the best. Sure, it’s bright but it’s going to look perfect on our Easter breakfast table!
See the bunny bunting in the background? It’s SUCH an easy and fun project to make!! You can find the instructions (with a FREE template!) here.
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Want more Easter or Spring inspiration?
Click on the photos below to take you to the project!
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