Bring the holly jolly to your next holiday party with this peppermint candy decoration! Follow along or watch the video and make one for yourself.
Supplies
Directions
Lay out the insulation foam sheet and draw three circles on it.
1 – 12″, 1 – 18″, 1 – 24″
I used the string method and a permanent marker, but tracing around plates or platters would also work.
Using a box knife, I roughly cut out the circles so the foam would fit in the band saw. I then cut all three circles using the band saw. If you don’t have one, a jig saw or hot knife would work just as well.
Down the center of each circle I routed a 1″ deep by 2″ wide channel into the back side. This will snuggly fit the 1×2″ board that will be the spine of the display. I used a straight router bit and made 3 passes to reach the finished size.
Before the next step, thoroughly remove the pink snow from routing the channel. I used a shop vac and a damp towel because the pink bits stick to EVERYTHING!
Once you and the pieces are clean, lay out the circles on the ground for a test fitting. Space the circles 5″ apart from each other with the smallest circle flush with the end of the board. Mark the edge of each circle on the wood then remove the wood from the channel. The marks will make realigning the circles after glueing a snap!
Apply a generous amount of expanding glue on all three sides of the channel. The glue will expand to fill any gaps between the foam and wood giving it a great bond. This glue requires one surface to be sprayed with water, and I did that to the wood.
Place the wood back into the channel taking note of the marks to realign the circles. Press firmly on the wood, then add weights until the glue dries.
Apply two coats of latex or acrylic paint to all sides of the foam and wood. DO NOT use spray paint directly on the foam as the solvents in the paint will eat the foam.
I made a template of the peppermint swirl so I could spray on the red. You could also paint the swirls by hand if you prefer. The template was 25″ across with 6 swirls cut out. Be sure to use a rigid material like poster board or cardboard.
The base coats of latex paint protects the foam from the solvents in the spray paint. It is important to use light coats of red because a pool of paint could eat through the latex. I aligned the template on each circle and used scrap pieces of foam underneath to support the template so it didn’t sag. To be sure no paint got under the template I held down areas with a popsicle stick.
I drilled two pocket holes into the 1×2 and attached it to a 12×12″ square of plywood. Later I added a small “L” bracket to reinforce the joint.
Next I made two large bows and attached them with a chenille stem to the wood. You can find my tutorial on how to make these bows here: http://beautifullyinspiredhome.com/how-to-make-a-two-ribbon-bow/
There we go!This is easily accomplished in a weekend and the results are a six foot tall holiday decoration for your next party.