Finally back to writing new stories about old stuff here at the ranch, but as a starter post to get things re-rolling here, it’s time to document a fun little bit of decor I worked up.
Way back in 2016 I found some cute candle holder thingies at a craft store that has since closed.
They sat on the downstairs mantle with some wee cacti planted in them, which either outgrew the cups or died from overwatering by an overzealous assistant. So I cleaned them up and set them aside and tried to think of a new way to use them.
Fast-forward to one day last fall when I was tidying up the garden shed and came across some cute little copper baskets I purchased from Gardners.com. They were meant to contain an airplant and hang with the opening at the bottom, but I never found a spot for them, so they ended up hanging in the shed unused for quite a while. But after looking at them again, I came up with a plan.
First I painted the baskets, as the bare wire had oxidized and was no longer so bright and cheery. Then I dug up some unused doll rods, washers and some old large nuts that were once used along with a length of nylon rope to provide a guideline in the pool (before we had it redone). I sprayed the assemblies with a couple coats of polyurethane and let them sit. I now had some little flower-like things that would sit securely in the glass cups with the aid of some pretty glass pebbles.
Small problem though. There were only six baskets and eight glass cups to fill, and I couldn’t order any more wire baskets as they’re no longer in stock. So I had to get even more creative.
I had a couple of styrofoam disks squirreled away and two bags of little pompoms I’d picked out of a craft store clearance rack years ago for a dollar. So I painted the styrofoam and then undertook the rather tedious task of hot gluing the pompoms onto quarter lengths of toothpicks and, once they cured, gluing the other end of the toothpicks into the styrofoam.
Finally I took some of the boys’ dropped feathers and, after some careful math and measuring, inserted them into the edge of the styrofoam disks.
The end result is a pair of stylized feather-flowers. I used two more nuts/washers/doll rod assemblies to get them to also sit securely in the glass cups.
And now the funny little candle holders are back on the great room mantle, but instead of containing wee lumpy cacti that got lost in the space, they now provide some color and pop to the room.
