DIY Topiary Tree Using Yard Trash & Paper

Now that you've finally seen our completed Wonderland room, let's focus on this baby:

 Our oh-so ridiculous topiary tree, which makes John and me grin every time we see it.

The inspiration came when I realized this corner needed some sort of floor plant. Then after 10 minutes browsing on Amazon, I realized that A) every sizeable floor plant was at least $100, and B) no way I was paying that much.

After another 30 minutes of googling, I announced to John that we were making a floor plant. John is pretty used to this sort of thing, so he just blinked and said, "Okay."

My first thought was to make giant palm leaves from EVA foam, but that wasn't over-the-top enough. Hey, if we're making a plant from scratch it should stand out from the pack, right? Nature, schmature. So I eventually found these inspirations:

Then I found two helpful tutorials for making smaller topiaries that I combined and adapted to create my own leaf technique. So shout-out to Pink Salt Riot and Lia Griffith for helping inspire what I'm about to show you.

I should mention this is incredibly time-consuming, but easy to do. You can also do the most time-consuming part while watching TV, since it's mindless and repetitive. So c'mon, let me walk you through it:

First you'll need some long dead branches. Thanks to our giant tree and general distaste for yard work, our back yard is FULL of those.

Boom.

Pick out 2 or 3 likely candidates, and twist them this way and that 'til you find an arrangement you like. Screw them together, then trim off any extra twigs you don't need.

Now we have a dead tree! Yay!

Our branches were a little short, so John extended them & built a rough box to hold them up for now:

 We'll replace this later with a vase.

 With the trunk settled, now let's make some greenery!

I like the texture of Lia Griffith's crepe paper leaves, so I ordered 2 rolls in 2 different shades: "leaf green" and "mid green." The two shades are very similar, but add a little variation I think helps sell the look:

 And here's a closer look at the texture:

 

The crepe paper rolls I ordered were $7 each on Amazon, but they're currently out of stock, probably because they ship from the UK. So keep checking back! Because we wasted a fair amount of paper figuring out our technique we had to order more paper for our last ball, but 2 rolls *should* be enough for you.)

 

You may think Styrofoam balls are an obvious choice to glue our leaves to for this project. So did I, 'til I saw how much foam balls cost. (Spoiler: A LOT.) But no worries: who needs Styrofoam balls when you have crumpled paper and tape?

Make your paper-and-tape ball about 3 or 4 inches smaller than you want the finished topiary ball to be. Try to get it as round as you can, but don't worry if it's not perfect. Neither are trees!

 

There IS an essential trick to this, so listen up: you'll need a piece of hollow PVC pipe that's 3 or 4 inches long and wide enough to fit over your supporting branches. Embed the pipe inside your paper ball, and mark the pipe end with a marker like you see here. That way when you're done wrapping your paper ball with masking tape, you can cut the entry open:

 

Like this!

The PVC pipe is how you attach the ball to the branch; it slides in place like a pen cap. Now you can add all the leaves separately, then pop the ball in place on the tree. Easy-peasy!

Paint the ball dark green with cheap craft paint, to prevent any lighter areas showing through later.

This visual cracked us up so much. It look like a wadded up diaper on a dead tree.

Now we come to the super time-intensive part: cutting the leaves.

First cut your crepe paper down into 4X2 inch strips. John cut the long strips with a blade:

...then I cut those down with scissors 3 layers at a time. This goes pretty fast:

Now let's FINALLY make some leaves! This is a 4-step process, and since it's a little tricky to describe John and I filmed it and turned it into this handy gif:

1) Fold each piece in half

2) Stretch out the top edge by pulling the 2 ends apart

3) Cut 4 or 5 leaf points into the top edge

4) Open the folded leaf section & and pinch it open

 

Ta-daa! Leafy goodness!

Now throw that in a bowl and repeat about a thousand times.

Once you've amassed a truly staggering amount of leaves, you can start hot-gluing them onto your taped ball. John used the end of a silicone cooking spoon to help press the paper in place without burning his fingers:

 

He also made this stand by duct-taping a stick to a paint can. I advise doing the same, preferably with a full-ish can of paint, so the weight keeps it from tipping.

Through trial-and-error John learned it's best to work from the bottom up hot-gluing the leaves, as opposed to randomly placing them all over and filling in:

 Space them out as much as you can to conserve paper, but still make them dense enough that you can't see between the leaves.

When you're done pop it on the tree, and start on the next one!

The other advantage of making your own taped balls: you can make any size you like. All 4 of ours  are slightly different sizes.

Pop the whole tree in a vase filled with rocks to keep it steady. Of course, we didn't have a vase, and we're staying away from stores right now. So I asked John to build a basic wooden box - something simple, since we wouldn't see it much behind the chair anyway.

The next morning I got up to find John had made THIS:

Whaaaaaaat.

Yes, he MADE that... OUT OF WOOD. Scrap wood, even!

I didn't believe him either, but look, I have proof:

How he figured out all these angles I'll never know. My brain simply doesn't work in 3D this way.

Gluing it all together.
John finished it off with a little putty and sanding:

 

Then he spray-painted it metallic bronze. He already had all of this in the garage, so it's like he conjured this gorgeous thing for free out of thin air! 

I mean... it's disgusting, right? UG. (Love you, Sweetie. ;))

For the finishing touch I ordered a color-changing accent light for $15, and since our vase is WOOD, John was able to just screw it directly into the bottom where it won't show:

 As your reward for making it all the way through this tutorial, let's set this baby to DISCO MODE:

 

AW YEAH.

With the light's remote we can set it to any color, or have it alternate. Mostly we leave it on this warm orangey glow:

 

  

... but I also like the teal that matches our glowing mushrooms:

 (Mushroom lamp by The Snow Made!)

 One more of the purple/fuchsia, because WOW do I love these colors:

The light is directional, so it doesn't affect the whole room unless all the lights are out. Mostly it looks like this in the evening:

I'm hoping to add fairy lights around the topiary balls themselves using thin wire LEDS, but that will be an experiment in custom wiring. Fingers crossed we can make that work, because imagine how much more magical this would look with little lights in the tree!

So now the big question: is anyone else inspired to make your own topiary tree?? Tell me what you'd change, or how else you would use this! John and I are already working to modify my leaf pattern to make smaller versions, since I'd like to make something desktop size next with our extra paper. I'll let you know how that goes!

*****


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