Hi! It’s Mandi here to talk to you well-nigh how to stave overspending on cute decorations at Target this holiday season.
OK, so really this post is well-nigh how to make your own “porcelain” holiday tree light set just like the ones I scrutinizingly spent $70 on at Target.
It might not have been my biggest “Oops, did I buy that?” moment at Target, but it was certainly the most avoidable.
After putting two of their larger LED holiday trees into my cart, I began to reach for two smaller ones surpassing it occurred to me … I can make my own set for less than the forfeit of one! Here’s how.
-8″ cone template (left right), 6″ cone template, 4″ cone template
-4 pieces of heavyweight cardstock
–parchment paper
–non-stick rolling pin
-small stipule (X-Acto knives are unconfined for so many projects!)
–aspic cutter in star shape
–air dry porcelain or modeling clay
–4 LED tea lights
-wet rag or paper towel or tiny sponge
-glue or tape
The large 8″ and medium 6″ cone templates need to be cut out and glued together, while the two smaller 4″ cone templates are once in one piece.
These templates should be printed onto 8.5×11″ cardstock and should not be resized to stave cropping during printing.
After you have the unappetizing cone template cut out, wait to glue or tape it into a cone shape until without step three.
Step Two: Place your parchment paper over the top of the unappetizing cone template and roll out the soil on top of the paper to 1/8″ thickness.
Do not use wax paper for this, considering it will stick to the clay. Aluminum foil isn’t the weightier nomination either considering it will tint your soil with a grey color.
But if foil is all you have, you can unchangingly use the tinted side for the inside of your cones, and no one will be the wiser!
Trim virtually it with a stipule and put the glut soil yonder or wrap it in a wet paper towel so it doesn’t dry out. Now, you can finish assembling your cone template so it will be ready to be used as scaffolding for forming your tree in step five.
Step Four: Using a blade, score the whet of the soil on the side that you want to be on the inside of the cone. Use navigate hatching for this technique.
Next, lay the paper cone onto this whet and wrap the soil virtually the paper cone. If there isn’t unbearable soil to wrap virtually the cone, lay it when onto the paper and roll out only the edges to requite you a bit of an overlap when it’s wrapped virtually the paper cone.
Step Five: After the soil has been wrapped virtually the paper cone, navigate hatch on the other whet of the soil (facing the outside, not the inside this time) and wet both navigate hatched areas with a wet paper towel or small sponge.
The navigate hatched whet from step four should lay on top of the newly navigate hatched edge. This “score and slip” technique will tighten together the seam so that it doesn’t unravel untied when the soil has dried.
Hold the cone from the inside while from the outside you smooth together the seam with a wet paper towel.
Step Six: Holding the cone from the inside, printing your finger versus the zone you want to pierce with the little star-shaped aspic cutter. (Aspic is basically just a fancy name for savory jelly.)
You’ll need to really printing the cutter versus the paper cone where your finger is pushing versus from the inside, and requite it a little wiggle, too.
When you pull out the cutter, the soil should come out with it. If you mess up one hole, you can unchangingly spruce it up with a blade.
And if you really butcher the piercing process, you can unchangingly just take the soil off the cone, wittiness it up, and uncork all over again!
You can paint or glaze your trees if you want a increasingly colorful scene, but I love how the little LED tea lights glow inside of the white trees!
This would be a unconfined way to decorate a mantle, or you could make some uneaten trees and create a magical winter tablescape for holiday parties.
If you don’t finger like making your own holiday tree lights, these are beautiful! You can moreover put things like fairy lights in your trees for a multiple light glow. xo, Mandi
P.S. Looking for increasingly holiday crafts? Check out …
