Fancy Sweetie Trees ...

Hi everybody ,

Just a quick fly by today as I'm up to the eyeballs in stuff to do , have been under the weather for the last few days and I've got a bit behind in the household chores!! was away in Hampshire at a firework party on Satuday and took most of sunday to recover so havent done much plus the Gremlins have been chewing on the Internet cable again and we lost contact with the outside world for a few days, happens a lot in the raining season which in Britain is anytime between September to July!! I think this years summer was cancelled due to lack of interest!!!!

Any hows here's today project.....
SWEETIE TREES..
great to decorate the table at Christmas or to give as a gift if you are visiting , I've even seen them at wedding just covered in mints to make the wedding decor, they looked fabulous . The ones below are my first attempt at them and I'm quite pleased with the results and plan to make more to give as gifts and sell on my Xmas craft stall at our local Club which helps raise money for the British legion
 

To make these you will need
PVA glue
long Pins
Polystyrene balls -1 per tree
Small tin bucket
Plaster of Paris (POP)
Ribbon
Topper
3 packets of toffees, mints ,sherbets etc..
9'' stick

Step1
 First paint your polystyrene ball a nice colour so when the sweets start to disappear you are not left with an ugly white ball to look at, leave to dry

Step 2
Decorate you stick with ribbon and then set in plaster of Paris in the centre of the tin bucket, made sure to use a tin one as the POP gets hot and would melt a plastic one!!

Step 3
Decorate the tin with some glitter ribbon or a topper or even a cup cake wrapper will do anything the brightens it up!! I put some double sided tape round mine and them covered the tape with glitter on the front  I've put a Santa on one and a sentiment of another ..

Step 4
Take your painted polystyrene ball, now dry, and push a pencil or pen inside it to make a hole. Dig in half way then put some PVA down the hole and push onto your stick, again leave to dry

Step 5
Take your sweets and dip one end in some PVA glue and then pin onto the ball starting at the bottom and working your way up to the top. put a little glue on the pin as well as you dont want it to be pulled out with the sweet the longer the pins the lest chance that will happen. Different sweets make different trees, all white mints look great on wedding tables where as purple and gold are great at Halloween, and multicoloured ones arefab at Christmas...

Step 6
Decorate the bare spaces on your ball if you have any with some ribbon and then tie a large ribbon around the stick to finish . Always make sure the tin at the bottom will be big enough to support your finished tree as when they are covered in sweets they become quiet heavy and always supervise Children as the more determined little monsters will always find a way of getting to the pins inside the ball, or using it as a hammer to bash their sibling with!!! At best you could just come back and find a bald tree !!

I would like to enter these in the following Challenges
Monochrome Challenge /come and get it
Loolipop crafts Challenge 93# Halloween
Pile it on Challenge 45# make it sparkle
celebrate the season/ greatimpressionsChallenge