DIY Peppermint Topiary

The other day I came up with this fun idea for a homemade topiary that looks like a peppermint.  My Mom needed an idea for gifts to donate to our local festival of trees and using what we had around the house I came up with these.  They turned out really cute and only took me about an hour to make!  We used foam core board, a bamboo skewer, pages from an old book I use for crafts, a little bucket, and some red paper.  First I cut a circle out of the foam core the size of the peppermint, then you take pages from the book and tear them into small pieces (the trick is you want them to be small enough that you can't read whole sentences but big enough that it doesn't take a ton of time to cover your circle).  Then you glue them onto the front and back making sure that you cover the whole circle.  I didn't worry if the paper went over the edge because it was really easy just to trim it after the glue dried.

The next step is to cut peppermint swirl shapes out of your red paper.  I eyeballed the first one and then traced it to make the rest.  I ended up with 5 "swirls" on each side (so 10 total).  Then you glue those on top of your paper covered circle.  I then modpodged on top of the whole thing once everything was glued on.

You're almost done now!  Next I stuck the skewer in the bottom of the circle and then stuck it in a piece of floral foam that was glued to the bottom of my bucket.  To finish it off we also modpodged some vintage Christmas pictures to the bucket, but you could use any type of container you wanted.  We also added a piece of ribbon around the skewer and glued some red twine around the edge of the peppermint because it gave it a more finished look.

All in all it was an awesome and inexpensive Christmas decoration!  I love the vintage feel of it with the old book pages and vintage holiday images.  If you would rather have it more modern you could always use a shiny metal bucket and just plain white paper, there are lots of ways you could personalize this project!  Also a little tip I thought I might add, if you have problems using an actual book you can color copy the pages and use those instead.  That way you don't have to rip up a book.  And here is the finished product!  I hope you all enjoy the tutorial and fill your home with Christmas cheer!