Ballard Inspired Topiary

The Kitchen Renovation finally feels like it is really underway and along with the big projects, I'm continuing to working on some of the littler ones.

I wanted one of the Ballard Style Boxwood Topiaries, but couldn't justify the $50 plus shipping cost. Lucky for me, I'm creative and was able to find the supplies to create 2 full topiaries for less than $25. (Turns out I only made 1, though I'm stocked up to make another if I decide I want to...)

Here is what I started with:

Supplies:

• Topiary Forms (found them for $2 each at AC Moore)
• Faux greenary, found at Ikea, didn't like the others I found elsewhere.
• Moss
• Brown paint
• Scissors
• Tooth pick
• Glue

 First up, I spray painted the shaft of the topiary form brown, it was a yucky grey-ish tan before...

(I got some paint on the form, oops.)

Next I had to decide which of the greeneries I purchased to go with... I knew I could use both on upcoming projects.

I decided to go with the one on the left... I liked the varigation of the medium green to the light and the small leaf.

Then I started clipping away, not only did I have to cut each stem off, but then I cut each stem into 2 sometimes 3 pieces to get the effect for the topiary that I wanted.

Until I had a huge pile of pieces.

I took the tooth pick and pierced the foam of the topiary form, then dipped the greenery in white glue and stuck it in the hole. It turned out that the hole created by the tooth pick and the stem of the greenery were a perfect fit. I had also gotten out a pin, a few different nails incase I need something of another size, but the tooth pick worked great.

It took a lot of greenery to cover each of the balls on the topiary form, I had quite a little system going...

Next up, I had to cut the moss to fit over the bottom of the form. I started by cutting a template out of scrap paper.

I made sure to cut the moss outside, that stuff sheds like crazy and my husband would have really started twitching if I made the mistake of cutting the moss inside, again.

The moss was then tucked around the base of the form after the form was put in the pot.

And here is the finished topiary:

Edited to add: