Paint Me Plaid

In the never ending quest to come up with new and unique ways to decorate your holiday table, a new solution is created by the simple art of decorating with food. In this case, a fall staple, Candy Corn! The enduring candy has now been elevated to the status of elegant with this project created by Plaid Designer, Julie Lewis. Add to it the functional aspect of personalization and your table will make a truly unique and expressive statement.

Plaid Supplies Needed:

FolkArt® Acrylic Paint – 666 Metallic Antique Copper, 741 Glazed Carrots, 918 Yellow Light, 920 Autumn Leaves, 2579 Fresh Cut Grass

FolkArt® Chalkboard Paint – 2540 Brown

2 – 2” wood blocks

2 – Wood candlesticks 1 7/8” x 1 ¾” #198853

2 – 2” Styrofoam balls

1/8” dowel rod

2 varieties of candy corn

Craft glue

Hot glue gun

Hand drill

Ruler

Pencil

Scissors

Hammer/nail

Green garland

#1 liner brush

¼”, ½” flat brush

Gather what you’ll need.

Create an ‘x’ on top of your wood blocks to find center.

Here’s a tip so that your drill bit doesn’t go off center when you start drilling. Hammer a nail directly in your center mark for a guide.

Drill your holes keeping the bit straight approximately ¼” deep or a little more.

Insert a dowel rod into your Styrofoam balls to create a handle when you paint them.

Paint your balls with Yellow Light and Antique Copper. You can put them back in the wood blocks to dry…handy!

When your balls are dry, set aside and paint one block Fresh Cut Grass and the other Autumn Leaves.

Another cool tip, use the bottom of your wood candlestick to draw a circle on one side of both blocks. This is where your chalkboard area will be.

Using your liner brush, paint green swirls on three sides of your Autumn Leaves block. Then paint Autumn Leaves swirls on your green block. Paint swirls around your pencil circle on the front of blocks.

Paint the tips of your swirls on the green block with Glazed Carrots.

Mix equal parts of yellow and green to highlight the tips of the green swirls.

Here they are ready for chalkboard paint!

Apply several coats of chalkboard paint inside of circle. Let coats dry before applying more paint. Don’t worry if it is not a perfect circle as it will be framed with little dots.

Using opposite end of paintbrush dipped in Antique Copper; apply dots around the edge of chalkboard area.

Here are your blocks finished!

Now take your Styrofoam balls, candy corn and your glue gun. I’m using one of Plaid’s awesome Hot Glue Gun Helpers…the mat as my gluing surface. Nothing sticks to it!

Start at the middle of the ball making sure your hole from the dowel rod is at the bottom. Apply hot glue to the ball and place candy corn around the center. Continue gluing corn in rows towards top and bottom of ball. Leave hole open.

Finished candy corn topiary! Repeat process with the second ball.

Paint the wood candlesticks referring to photo for color placement.

Glue painted candlesticks to bottom of wood blocks. (The side without the hole)

Find center of your dowel rod…approximately 4” lengths.

You can use scissors to score the rod, and then gently snap in half. Paint Antique Copper.

Glue the rods into the topiary heads and let dry.

Then glue the other end of the rods into your wood blocks.

Create a small circle from the garland and place around the dowel on top of the block.

Personalize your topiaries with your guest’s names and enjoy these truly unique place cards for your holiday table!