Want to learn how to make beautiful New Year decorations? To quickly master the manufacturing technology, study the workshop "Herringbone of sisal." Below are several options for designs and decor. Read, choose the appropriate view. Create spectacular details for a festive atmosphere.
Sisal
This term refers to a special natural fiber obtained from the fresh leaves of a plant of the genus Agave. The unpainted material has a light yellowish tint. For practical purposes it is used for the production of ropes, twine and other things. Currently, sisal is popular in the field of decorating floral compositions, as well as creating souvenirs and handmade jewelry. The master class "Herringbone from sisal" will teach you how to maximize the use of the properties of this material for design purposes.
Christmas gifts
If you are interested in the possibilities of this material or have long looked at it in a flower shop, then it is time to create hand-made gifts with it. The workshop "Herringbone from sisal" will show you how to make different types of jewelry:
- herringbone pendant;
- topiary;
- Christmas tree made of sisal balls.
Manufacturing options are different. Decoration for the holiday can be done both in traditional green and in any other, for example, blue or red. The material is sold in a fairly wide range of colors, but on the eve of the New Year holidays, green may just not be. So it’s worth worrying in advance, but if you don’t have time, it's okay - you just have to color the existing blanks in the right color.
What is required
Do-it-yourself sisal herringbone can be made in many ways. You can use any materials to carry out the basics: either purchased, or those that you already have in stock. All options will be discussed below, and the list of necessary tools, compositions and accessories is as follows:
- foam cone;
- cardboard or paper;
- pencil;
- compass;
- stapler or scotch tape;
- glue or thermal gun;
- wire;
- wire cutters;
- gypsum or alabaster;
- mixing container;
- stick for stirring;
- a cup or pot for fixing the base;
- rod, stick, skewers to create a stem;
- sisal of the desired color;
- paint of the corresponding sisal shade;
- brush or sponge (sponge);
- decorative elements (satin ribbons, beads, beads, sparkles, bows, balls, tinsel, soft artificial snow , etc.)
Using this list, you can easily determine what you need or what method of work to choose based on what you already have available.
How to make a Christmas tree blank from paper
To make a beautiful and neat Christmas tree made of sisal (it’s not so difficult to make such a miracle as in the picture above), you need to properly prepare the basis for decoration. If you have not bought a foam blank, it is easiest to make it in the form of a cone made of cardboard or thick paper. The work goes in the following order:
- Fold a piece of paper in the form of a bag or first draw a diagram of the future cone using a compass and a ruler.
- Glue the overlap with the heat gun, regular glue, adhesive tape (double-sided) or fasten the seam in several places with a stapler.
- On a different sheet of paper or cardboard, draw a circle with a diameter corresponding to the base. Bonding allowances should be made if you do not have a thermal gun. They can attach one part to another end.
- Glue the circle to the cone.
- Color the resulting part in the tone of sisal so that ugly gray cardboard or white paper does not shine through the gaps between the fibers.
Procurement completed. You can start decorating.
Fabric base
You learned how to make a Christmas tree from sisal, more precisely, while you made only the basis for it from paper. Another option is to make a soft blank of fabric or filler, for example, synthetic winterizer. To do this, do the following:
- Cut a synthetic winterizer or prepared dense fabric into strips. Width and length depend on what size of material you have, as well as the size of the souvenir that you plan to make.
- As a frame, take a strong wire of the desired length.
- Start wrapping stripes of padding polyester on the rod from the place where the top of the tree will be, down, not reaching the end of the wire a few centimeters. To prevent material from sliding off the frame, be sure to fix it with glue.
- When the first bar is over, continue on to the second, etc.
- Pay particular attention to the base of the workpiece. In this part, uniform expansion should occur.
The second method will require a denser arrangement of sisal fibers so that the filler does not shine through, however, when working with this method, you can give the tree a slightly rounded shape. It will look more natural, not geometric.
How to make a suspension
So, you have learned how to make a Christmas tree. Very beautiful topiary are made from sisal, the pendant and just the decoration that can be put on the festive table will look wonderful. Depending on what you want to make, choose the appropriate method of fastening (installing) crafts.
If you want your souvenir to be placed on a Christmas tree or to decorate it with your interior, and you are thinking how to make a Christmas tree pendant, make a loop or hook at the top of the blank. You can make such a functional element like this:
1. For a paper cone: fold a small piece of wire in half in the form of a loop and thread through the hole - the top of the cone. Tie the knot from the inside, twist the ends of the wire with wire cutters, and drip the glue from the heat gun from the outside. Perform the operation before gluing the bottom.
2. For a soft workpiece: before you start winding the strips on the rod, back off the desired length of wire and twist into a loop. If you want the pendant element to be thinner and more decorative than the core of the frame, attach a loop made of thin wire or other material to the top of the core.
Christmas trees from sisal
The master class approached the most crucial stage - gluing a sisal layer. This must be done carefully so as not to damage the fibers. If the base color of the tree matches the shade of the material, you can glue sisal in one layer. When you need to hide the "insides", you will have to try and wrap the tree with a lot of material if you bought it in the form of a roll.
As for the base, you can cut it out in the form of a circle, and neatly decorate the borders of the transition from the cone to the bottom. If you have sisal in the form of fiber, and not a sheet (roll), the surface of the tree may turn out to be excessively shaggy. To eliminate this drawback, you will have to wrap the workpiece with special broth thread, for example, silver.
New Year's Topiary
This souvenir is a small man-made tree-trimmed tree in a pot.
Usually, a foam ball or a papier-mâché sphere is used as the basis. If you want to make a herringbone topiary from sisal, then take the same cone as for the workpiece, as for an ordinary Christmas tree. For your Christmas tree to become what is called a topiary, you will have to make a trunk, which is fixed at one end in a cone and the other at a pot. This design is performed as follows:
- Take a glass, pot, or other suitable container.
- Pour some water and lay in plaster or alabaster. Mix the ingredients thoroughly. Consistency should resemble thick sour cream.
- Pour the composition into the pot.
- Immediately, until the gypsum has solidified, place a stick, a core or a stem made up of several thin skewers in the center of the pot. Hold it so that it does not fall and does not move until the mass hardens.
- When the composition has solidified, cut off the top of the cup if you have not added the cast to the edges.
- Wrap the stem shaft with decorative tape. This is best done at this stage, so as not to stain the decorated surface with drops of liquid gypsum when installing the rod.
- Also decorate the pot, for example with a satin ribbon.
- The gypsum surface is easily decorated with the same sisal, tinsel, beads or coffee beans.
- Fix the Christmas tree cone on the rod, having previously cut a hole of the corresponding diameter in the base of the craft. Glue the joint with a thermal gun.
If your Christmas tree is made of soft material wound on a metal rod, you do not need an additional stem. Place the finished structure directly in the pot with hardening gypsum. The main thing is not to stain the product.
Christmas tree made of sisal balls
All steps for making such a souvenir will be similar to those described above. The difference is that the surface of the Christmas tree will not be even, but consisting of balls.
They can be twisted directly from fibers or any filler, for example, synthetic winterizer, which will be wrapped on top of sisal, can be used as a base. This will save on decorative material and make more balls. By the way, they can be the same in diameter or different. In the latter case, large ones should be placed closer to the base of the tree, and small, respectively, to the top.
How to decorate a product
Christmas trees made of sisal look especially nice if they are decorated with all kinds of small details.
Options can be used as follows:
- String the beads or beads onto a thread or wire (or buy a finished one) and wrap the item in a spiral from top to bottom.
- The same as in the previous paragraph, it is easy to do with a thin satin, brocade or other decorative ribbon, lace or braid.
- Glue lumps of artificial snow (purchased or made from cotton wool) at the base of the tree or on the top of the pot.
- Cut snowflakes with a figured hole punch and glue them on the surface of the Christmas tree.
- Use tinsel.
- In free areas between the ribbons you can place small balls, bows.
So, the workshop "Herringbone from sisal" came to an end. We discussed several options for creating a beautiful New Year's decor. Choose your favorite and start the creative process.