Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Part 2 of my DIY Centerpieces - Construction of the Stands

I wanted tall centerpieces as I mentioned in my pomander tutorial, and by golly I was going to get them without spending an arm and a leg. Pssshhh $50 - $200 per centerpiece, no thank you!

Here again is one of my inspiration images



















I've tackled the pomanders on the cheap, now here come the stands for said pomanders.

I needed long, decorative, wood pieces. Hmm.... where was I going to find these without having to pay too much for them? I did a once over on all the scrap wood we had in the garage and wasn't seeing anything. Then I turned around and saw our old drop side crib for the kids. As I stared at it I realized the bars would be perfect! And since you can't sell those drop side cribs anymore I figured I might as well get some use out of it, so I took it apart



There we go, the poles for our tall centerpiece stands. 


Now the trick was to get them to stand up. With all the scrap wood we had in the garage I knew I would be able to figure something out. At first I thought, "oh I'll just cut out some squares and glue it together." I thought about it and quickly dismissed the idea as that would look funky. I needed circles. I went to my finance for this step. He suggested a circle blade for the drill. Whadduya know, they cut out circles!


These bad boys rocked! It took awhile to get the hang of using them , but it cut perfect circles in the 1 inch thick (what I think is) plywood. It came in huge sheets and it was what we used to make the castle loft bed. 

From This

To this

I cut out 2 different sizes of circles so the base wouldn't look so plain. Then I widened the holes a bit with a large drill bit so that the poles would fit perfectly. Now for the assembly. I just threw some wood glue in the holes on the circles and them pushed the poles in and let it dry. 



Woo hoo! now we have a stand. It doesn't look like much right now, but with a little paint and some embellishments it will really shine!


That concludes part 2 of the centerpieces. Part 3 is coming soon!