You ever see one of those craft tutorials you're so smitten with that you have to immediately try - even though you have several others on your to do list? It's not that the others are lesser in any way, it's just that one in particular
speaks screams at you! Well,
Vintage Revivals' tinfoil nightstand was one such tutorial. I just discovered it last week, and my head has been spinning around on what to try it on. I have soooo many ideas, but the wreath and paper mache heart box are my first.
Okay, so you also probably know how some things work out in your head perfectly, but once you start doing it you think you made a terrible wrong turn somewhere, dropped out of reality, and soon you might expect to see Oompa Loompas singing behind chocolate flowers. Yep, that's what happened with my first tinfoil wreath idea.
You see, I had this bright idea that tinfoil would stick to itself in a nice way, and it doesn't all that well - at least not when it's on a non-flat surface.
First of all, I made my own wreath form since the only wreath forms I have right now are straw, and I knew straw would be poking out of the tinfoil in no time. I did my usual cutting of wreath forms out of a Stouffers lasagna box and then sandwiched some fabric remnants between the two cut outs. Of course, the fabric just didn't want to stick in there, so I quick grabbed a big ball of blue cloth strips and started wrapping and stuffing.
Well, thank goodness I picked this blue color, cuz oh boy, the next step did not work - wrapping tinfoil around my makeshift wreath form.
I had to tie the tinfoil strips to keep them in place. Nope, that just ain't gonna work, so I ripped it all off and cut out a wreath form from corrugated cardboard.
I did Mandi's trick from Vintage Revivals and mod podged and smoothed the lightly scrunched up tinfoil with a credit card. (She has much more detailed instructions than I do here). Once dried, I used a mixture of paint and water and painted and dabbed on the wreath.
Once that was good and dry, I added some embellishments, like some gorgeous lace, textured yarn, funky ribbon, and a flower. I also put some beads from a necklace onto floral wire and wrapped it around. I used floral wire to hold the tinfoil part and my blue fabric colored wreath form together. (Said wire was wrapped around both when holding the beads and hiding under the lace and some of the yarn. And voila!
The picture does not do it justice because it is soooo much prettier in person. I think I'm in love!
Then there's something else I'm quite smitten with - the paper mache heart box. Yep, all covered with painted tinfoil.
Here are a couple close ups:
If you try this, make sure you paint the tinfoil pretty good; otherwise, you'll have visions of velvet Elvis paintings intruding in your peaceful mind because it'll look too much like something wrapped in tinfoil. Yick. I used
Ranger Heat It Craft Tool
on the purple section, and it made the paint stay on better. I think I'm going to be using it more.
Lastly, I put a coat of Mod Podge over the painted tinfoil to seal it in. Forgot to do that with my wreath, but since that's hanging on the wall, it's not as likely to get bumped around and possibly marred. (Although with my acrobatic puppy Tessa, I'm sure she'll start walking on walls soon).
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