Christmas Topiary Craft

Now that November has hit, I deem it okay to start creating Christmas decorations.  Not until Thanksgiving time will I actually start decorating, but I just can't help making my crafts when I see all the Christmas decorations in stores already! My first craft of choice...a Christmas ornament topiary!  So, my brother's girlfriend and I went shopping and bought enough supplies to make two.

Here's what we bought:

From Walmart:
2-Pack 4" foam balls
1- 1/2" dowel, cut in half to 18"

From Big Lots:
4-Containers of small glass Christmas ornaments in red, gold, green, and silver
2-tapered Christmas gift boxes
Assortment of berry picks to cut apart in the same colors as the ornaments

From Dollar Store:
2-green flower foams to fit in our boxes

All in all, this project cost us about $23 to make two...probably could make these a lot cheaper at the end of the season when all of those items are on sale, but oh well! I had the ribbons already and I stole the white stuffing from one of my shredded stuffed animals (thanks Molly!).

1. Step 1: Stick the dowel into the foam ball about 2".  Pull out, put hot glue on it, and stick it back in. You can spray paint the foam ball a color from your color scheme before doing this step, but we didn't.

2. Pull the caps off the ornaments, put hot glue on them, and press them into the foam ball until it is covered.  You will have white spaces.

3. Fill in the empty spaces using smaller balls.  That is where we cut off the sparkly berries from the picks we bought. We also added some sparkly twigs and such from some other Christmas picks I had laying around. This is also when you can wrap the dowel with ribbon, or paint it.

4. Glue the green foam into the bottom of the box. Push the other end of the dowel into the foam about 2".  Pull out and glue.

5. Add a bow...and some fake snow...

6. Voila! I was going to add some small presents in the snow, but it seemed a little busy...instead I might sprinkle some Martha Stewart glitter onto it!

Mine is on the left, Steph's is on the right!

Thinking I may make some of these for Christmas gifts...though I think I will buy a package of glass ornaments that are slightly larger than the ones I bought and mix them up when I make it.