Topiary How To

A little while ago our company made decorations for a Nightmare Before Christmas inspired wedding. The bride was a huge fan of the movie, but didn't want her wedding to scream Tim Burton. She had already decided on a black, white and plum/dark purple color scheme, and she didn't have a very big budget so we decided to have her decorations serve dual purposes. That way she could decorate both her wedding and reception and get the most bang for her buck. One of the decorations she decided on were two topiary bushes that would flank the altar, that would then get moved to the reception site after the wedding was over. The great thing about these are that they can easily be manipulated to suit whatever color scheme or theme you're going for. The trick is figuring out how to make them, but never fear dear reader, I will tell you everything.

We found the cheapest place to get the Styrofoam balls was www.plasteelcorp.com, and the roses was www.efavormart.com

Supplies
Flower pot
Quik-rete
White paint
Plastic water catcher (they go under plant pots)
1.5 in Dowel (long enough to get the height you need, and thick enough to bear the weight of the Styrofoam balls)
Styrofoam Balls in three increasing sizes (we used 4in 10in 16in)
Enough flowers to cover the balls (buying 1bag, 84 flowers, for the top, 2 for the middle ball, and 3 for the bottom, will ensure you have enough to finish the project)
Staple gun 
Hot glue gun
Ribbon
Easter basket filler

Step 1
Bore a hole in each half of the two larger Styrofoam balls large enough to just let the dowel pass through

 



Step 2
Spray dowel white

Step 3
Get medium sized flower pot in appropriate color, or spray it to match theme, put dowel in and add enough mixed Quik-rete to fill up the pot enough to support dowel. MAKE SURE DOWEL IS STRAIGHT WHEN IT'S DRYING.





Step 4
Bore hole through flower pot drip tray and slide onto cured dowel.

Step 5
Start covering your Styrofoam with fake flowers, poking holes in the Styrofoam and them pushing the flower stems through and gluing them into place



 

 

 



Make sure you buy open flowers, because the "buds" don't cover nearly as well, also they stick out higher that the open blooms.

 

 

Step 6

We attached the balls by gluing ribbon on the inside of the bottom half of a ball and then gluing the ribbon ends to the dowel and then putting the top half on and gluing the two halves together. This however made the ball extremely unstable, and they would twist around the dowel, we wound up just stapling through some of the flower petals into the post, and that worked better.



Step 7 (optional)
Glue ribbon around the dowel in matching color, you don't have to do this, but horizontal stripes are very Tim Burtony.



Step 8
Add basket filler on top of the drip tray, and a nice ribbon or bow to the front of your topiary. It's finished!

 

 

 

Happy Creating! -Fleur

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