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Christmas Popcorn Topiary

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Our family celebrated Thanksgiving early this year, and I felt the urge to make a Christmas craft. I decided to create a Fun Side-Out Project.  We started the day by buying our favorite flavors of microwaveable Pop Secret popcorn. I smiled as I remembered my Christmas past when I used to take the time to string popcorn for my tree! My kids always loved doing that even though I was always the last man standing.

First, I started gathering up some supplies that I had around the house. One of my favorite hobbies is to make something out of supplies I already own. After some thought, I decided I wanted to make a Christmas Tree Topiary. I headed out to my local craft store and purchased some straws, clay pots, Christmas colors of acrylic paint and styrofoam shapes. I added my new purchases to the craft items I already had and felt like I had everything I needed to begin! I tried dying my popcorn with Kool-Aid but did not like the results.

Bonus Tip: Terra cotta pots stick together when stacked. To easily separate pots simply run hot water over the pot on the bottom and immediately fill the top pot with cold water. Then gently twist them apart.

How To Make Paper Clip Gifts and Bows

By this time, I was getting pretty excited about my idea; so I thought “why not add some gifts under my tree”? I started by punching out some shapes and started to make my gifts. My gifts needed bows, and a way to stick them into the styrofoam under the tree, so I decided paperclips would be the perfect solution. Then I had used my handy hot glue gun to assemble my gifts.

Popcorn Crafts

While waiting for my popcorn to pop, I decided to paint my tree styrofoam shapes green.

My original plan was to dye the popcorn green and red, but after multiple attempts at this, I decided I might be better off to keep the popcorn white. I was able to get the popcorn red by using melted white chocolate chips and food coloring, but it was difficult to get the chocolate covered popcorn to stay on the tree after gluing it on with the hot glue gun. Perhaps my troubles were caused by the texture and the weight of the popcorn? I’m  not sure.

I would like to encourage you to create your Fun Side Out Project and submit the photos to the Pop Secret Facebook page or Instagram via the campaign hashtag #FunSideOut for a chance to win a year’s supply of Pop Secret Popcorn! All you have to do is create a craft using popcorn and paperclips. It can be as simple of complex as you would like. While you are working out your projects, if you find an easier way to dye popcorn and still be able to hot glue it on your project, please feel free to share it with us.

Several of my Grandchildren were here for our early Thanksgiving, so I asked them to help me out by painting the clay pots with their designs. I had a lot of fun watching how much they enjoyed their part in the project!

While we were working, we enjoyed some Pop Secret Sweet ‘n Crunchy Kettlecorn Flavor Microwave Popcorn and our time together. I may have to make this a tradition we repeat every year going forward! If you decide to participate in the Fun Side Out Project, you may be able to use this project start a new tradition, too!

Just pick up your favorite flavor of Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn and craft away!

Popcorn Hot Glue Crafts

While my Grandchildren were painting their pots, I glued the Red popcorn to my styrofoam tree shape.

Painting Flower Pots

Once I had the entire tree covered with the popcorn, I painted my pot and started thinking about a top for the trees. As you can see, I am more confident using a pencil eraser to make the dots than the paintbrush!

Now, it was time to think about a topper for the tree. I decided to use paperclips again. I bent four paperclips into shape and straightened one out for attaching it to the top of the tree. Then I punched out two 1 inch circles and used my handy dandy hot glue gun to glue the paperclips between the circles. Then I added a button from my craft room for a little added bling! I was amazed to get such fantastic results with so little effort!
Paper Clip Tree Topper Crafts
Talk about cute!
Popcorn Crafts For Kids
Now for the assembly. The next step of the Tree project was to cut my decorative straw in half and push it down into my round styrofoam shape and push my tree shape down onto the other end. I couldn’t wait to see how all of my colors and patterns were going to look together!
Christmas Tree Crafts
I liked what I saw at this point, but I discovered that something was missing. Looking closer, I decided that I needed a tree skirt. So I cut down my circle styrofoam shape so that it was flat on one side and placed it in my pot. Then I used a mason jar to trace a circle that would be smaller than the inside of my clay pot.
I did have to trim it down slightly to get it to fit inside the pot, and punch a hole in the center to get it over the straw, but was happy with the overall result. Even though you can’t see it, it made me feel better knowing it was there. 🙂
Popcorn Topiary Craft Projects Christmas
 
My next Fun Side Out Project was a white tree with gifts under it. I found it was much easier and quicker to hot glue the plain white popcorn to my styrofoam shape. I won’t mention that it was more fun this time! Oops!
Flower Pot Crafts
The popcorn stuck much better, and I was happy with the look of my tree! Then I used one of the pots my Grandson painted and assembled my tree.
Paper Clip Crafts For Kids
I used the same process of cutting my straw in half and inserting one end into the circle and putting the tree onto the other end. This time instead of cutting down the circle styrofoam shape flat, I left it like it was and inserted some of the gifts I had made earlier into it.
After putting my paperclip tree topper on I was wowed with the instant tree with presents under it, no tree skirt required!
Fun Side Out Crafts
 

What is your favorite Thanksgiving tradition?

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