Baby Shower- Wishing Tree

Let the crafting begin! One of the many crafts that we did for our friends "Bird" baby shower was a Wishing Tree. I have seen these all over the Internet and she mentioned that she would like one, so I thought 'How hard could it be....". I have known about the shower for months and have been preparing for it by stashing away items that I found on sale, seasonal finds and such. I cut branches off our trees (before they bloomed) because they were perfect for this tree. (I even used the branches for my Spring tree http://creativemammas.blogspot.com/2011/03/rainy-day-crafts.html- Pictured here)



I repeat....the branches where perfect for this craft but it wasn't meant to be. We left for a camping trip to Idaho and my loving in-laws threw them away. (They were trying to help us pack and thought they were just trash) I nearly cried! But the project had to get finished so I had to adapt and overcome.

I started with the base. I found these buckets at Target during spring for a buck! Love these finds. I wanted to make them look a little more special so I thought that wrapping them in Juke would be a nice change. (Going for that shabby chique look).

I used the same technique that I used in our Ballard Knock Offs posting http://creativemammas.blogspot.com/2011/03/ballard-knock-offs.html

Spreading glue around the bucket and tightly wrapping the juke around. Make sure you have enough juke to wrap the bucket in one piece.

After the glue was dried and I had found more branches (took me awhile), we were ready to start putting this Wishing tree together. I bought some floral foam from the dollar store and shaved the sides for it to fit into the bucket.

As for the branches I had to go the Micheals and pick up what I could. They had many choices but some were just not a good deal and they looked cheap. I settled on a bunch of actual branches and some imitation ones to mix in.

I cut many of them down to a manageable size for the bucket and them glued moss around them to hide the floral foam. (Sorry for the mess in the photo....my dinning room table has become craft central for this shower!)

As for the birds, I used the same bird template I made for the "Hand Sewn Birds" and cut out birds from scrapbook pages. I then used twine to make the loop to hang the birds from the tree.

The tree was a huge hit at the Shower! We used this instead of a guest book and it was great to have people add little comments and wishes to the mommy-to-be.

Stephanie 

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