Christmas Topiaries Made Using Painted and Decoupaged Gift Boxes and Trimmed with Birds and Feathers

This is a little project I designed that I'm calling Gift Box Topiaries

You can use them as a gift, put little cookies or candies in each box, 

or just use as decoration year after year.

Each box is attached to the lid of the box below it so they come apart

 for you to fill with your gifts or candy.

Here's a rundown of the process...

I ordered bulk paper mache' boxes in sets of three, 

ranging from 4" to 12"

I also ordered several colors of large feathered craft birds.

I primed and painted the boxes with base coats. 

I used spray paint for this and also spray painted the insides for a finished look

For the bases, I gathered wooden pieces and parts and played around 

with them until I had bases for all of the topiaries.

Here are most of the bases all primed with spray primer and ready for paint

 Here are a couple of the lids as I was painting..

After these were painted, I glazed them to give them an
antiqued look to match the sheet music that was used with these lids.

I love the diamond or harlequin pattern. I rarely predraw my diamond
pattern but usually just freehand and this is how I do it...

It's basically just a connect the dots type of technique.

 To start, I tap on tiny dots of paint with the end of the paint brush.

One for the top and one dot for the bottom.  

Then I decide how wide I want it to be and put those two dots.

  

Once you have your first diamond "dotted" out, then it's really easy 

to make alternating dots.... eyeballing the spacing for the rest of the diamonds.

Then you connect the dots and fill in with paint.

  To me this is much faster than measuring and drawing out.

 I personally like a more painterly look so it doesn't bother me if they aren't precise. 

I think when you look at it overall, they always look spaced pretty evenly.

 To embellish the tops of boxes I used the craft birds, decorative craft picks

and feathers. Some of the feathers came from feather boas and others I pulled from a 

feather duster I found at the dollar store.

I gussied up all of the artificial birds with glitter glue that I brushed 

or dotted on to give them a little extra sparkle.

On this set of boxes, I decoupaged with vintage sheet music. 

I did  not even notice this was the song until the Mod Podge 

was on and I was about to apply it to the box...Happy accident :)

For this set I used more sheet music but just for the lids

on the hand painted boxes.

The plaid one on the left is a star shape and it's base is an upside down planter.

More bright, fun ones with "painted" ribbons as if the boxes were wrapped.

The small one on the left has a wood candlestick as the base.

The large square on the right has a wooden bowl and a wooden plate piece for the base

I used one of those rubber paint design tools to drag

through the wet paint to create these patterns.

 Another star shaped version. 

For this one I used a stamp and added little dots along with the stamped design. 

I didn't use ink but dabbed paint onto the stamp and applied.  

It gave it a very uneven image which I liked and I followed suit by painting the 

rest of the box with a distressed gold finish.

Thanks so much for reading about my Gift Box Topiaries.

I've moved to my new website Lucydesignsart.com  focusing

exclusively on my mosaic art.

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