Happy Friday! I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! For me, the build up prior to the break was quite busy and a little chaotic, so this Christmas I’ve been keeping things pretty low key. In terms of holiday decorating, I decided not to put out my usual tree. Last year I actually did two trees (a pop-mod one, and a gold and glam one), since I was staying in two places. This year, I’m staying put in one place, but I still wanted to do some sort of project. So… I consulted my archives of vintage craft books and mags and came across this little slice of awesome in the December 1973 issue of Better Homes and Gardens Magazine.
The mid century vibe and the multi colored discs felt so fun and modern, yet still warm and festive. I’ve actually done a similar branches-in-vase “tree” idea in the past, but it’s been several years, and it just felt really fresh for me to revisit the concept again. The description for the discs in the inspiration images were a little vague and hard to understand. There weren’t any step by step instructions except that they were made by painting on paper placed in various jar lids, and then using some sort of melted down acrylic that that must have been readily available back in the 70s… needless to say, I needed to reinterpret it.
I was really attracted to idea of translucency but I knew that if they were hanging on branches, they needed to be lightweight. Originally, I thought about doing the old favorite melted crayon between waxed paper technique– but I tried one and it didn’t give me the effect I was looking for. So then I thought about painting on acetate. I got a pack of transparency acetate sheets and experimented with some acrylic paints. The whole process was pretty fun, just playing around with different colors and keeping things loose and… messy? When applying the paint, I kept it pretty thick and watery.
I really liked watching the colors bleed into each other and also mixing glitters and shimmers.
Because they were on acetate, it took at least a day to dry, but once they did, they were fine. Oh, speaking of acetate, since it’s clear, I found it helpful to cut out some paper template shapes to place underneath the acetate to act as a guide when painting.
While the paint was still drying, I decided some of the discs needed just a little glitz, so I cut up some gold paper doilies and pressed the pieces in the middle of the wet paint.
Once all dried, I cut them out, punched a small hole, used some gold string, and up they went! I recycled some of the gold ornaments from last year’s Project SB tree to add some additional shine. The vase is from West Elm, the gold bowl is from Target.
For the rest of the house, I just placed some more gold votive holders about and that was pretty much it!
Happy Mundane Holidays 2012!
It’s crazy to think that 2012 is quickly coming to a close. I plan on spending the remainder of the break to do some serious “holiday healing”. I really want to take advantage of not having the usual day-to-day work distractions and buckle down in some much needed cleaning, organizing, PURGING, and just getting my home, mind, and life ready for great things that I hope 2013 has in store! In the meantime, you can keep up on my progress (or fantastic efforts of procrastination) on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and oh- by the way- did you know I’ve started a mailing list? Scroll down below and sign up! I might just have a special surprise exclusively for email subscribers for New Years… Just enter your email and I hope you have a great (and cozy) weekend!