Ornament Topiary Christmas Craft

Instructions

1. Remove all the little hanger parts from your ornaments

2. Mark, to the best of your ability, the top of your ornament with a pencil or pen. I put the dowel in the bottom once I remove gold hanger part and bumped it on the top of the ornament from inside and then just felt where it was bumping and put my mark there.

3. If your ornament has a little nib where the gold hanger part went, I found it easier to clip those away with the wire cutters. Some just cut right off, while others I rather nibbled away on with the wire cutters.

4. Once I got as much off with the wire cutters, I used my drill bit to sand the rough edges down and make it as flush as possible to the ornament. Im sure the Tool Gods are trembling with how I was using the drill, but a girls got to do what a girls got to do. And it worked just fine and no tools were hurt during the filming.

5. Now comes the fun partdrilling the holes. I needed something to hold the ornaments while I drilled them. While walking to the garage pondering this dilemna I spied a pot of dirt that the sad remains of a begonia occupied. Here we go againCrafting Kismet! It worked perfectly! Sand would probably work better, but I just wiped the dirt off when I was done with the drilling.

6. I used the smaller, 1/16? drill bit first to make a guide hole otherwise the larger bit wanted to move around before it caught hold. That worked perfectly for me. Once I drilled the smaller hole in each ornament, I followed up with the larger drill bit. I found that you want to go slow and not use too much pressurejust let the drill do the work slowly.

7. If the openings where the gold hanger was on each ornaments needed to bigger, I just worked my bigger drill bit into each of those openings.

8. I practiced on some spare ornaments just to get the hang of what I needed to do, but I did not have one ornament crack! I was quite surprised.

9. You only need one hole for your top ornament

10. Once all the holes were drilled, I need to make my base pots. I used these cans which fit perfectly into my urns and filled them with plaster of paris according to the directions on the package.

11. I let the plaster of paris set up a bit before I put my dowel in. The package indicates that it has a working time of 6-10 minutes and sets firm in 1/2 an hour. While it was setting, I put a piece of duct tape over the top and marked the center of the can, once again to the best of my ability, by measuring the middle of a ruler placed over the can, at a couple different angles. (Complete non sequitur alert! Did you know that Kirkland Brand, sold by Costco, will never have BPA in their can liners!? I used to can my own tomatoes to avoid that, but dont feel the need ever since Costco came to the rescue!)

12. Once the plaster of paris began setting up, I placed my dowel in and used my level on a couple different sides to determine that it was straight. I checked every couple of minutes for about 20 minutes. I also placed the jar up against my cabinetswhich I assume are perfectly straight and eye-checked them too.

13. I placed the ornaments in a couple different configurations before I decided on this one. I did need to take about 4-5? off of the top of each wood dowel after I placed all the ornaments on it.

14. My mantle is high, so Im not worried about people looking in and seeing my can, but if I was Id add some greenery or something around the base of the topiary.