CAMPFIRE CENTERPIECES

As promised, here are the little campfire centerpieces I made for the Blue & Gold Banquet last month.  I started by cutting "flames" out of red, yellow, and orange tissue paper.  Even with 10 centerpieces to make, this hardly took any tissue paper, maybe a quarter of a sheet of each color.  I then used Modge Podge to glue the flames to the glass votives.  As you can imagine, this part is very messy - I had glue all over my hands, but thankfully the Modge Podge washes off hands, and it wipes of the glass if you make a little mistake as well. 

Next I painted the part of the pot that holds water (sorry, I don't know what it's called - the little dish piece that goes underneath the pot, help me out if you know what it's real name is).  If you're buying these new, you probably don't need to paint them, but as I was reusing mine, and they were royal blue, I thought a little brown paint was in order.  Then I glued the glass votive to the pot dish turned upside down, using craft glue.  You could use hot glue, which will dry faster, but there is a chance they will break apart if they get bumped or dropped (which is how I took the old centerpieces apart in the first place). 

Now comes the tricky part - the rock ring.  I started by wadding up pieces of newspaper into  little balls and taping them with masking tape so they kept their shape.  The great thing about this is that you don't have to worry about making perfect shapes or sizes, because they're rocks.  I made about 8 for each centerpiece, though some needed 9, depending on the size of the rocks and how closely I glued them together.  Then I cut grey butcher paper into strips big enough to wrap around the rocks.  I took each strip and crumpled/uncrumpled it several times to give it texture and make it easier to work with.  Then I dipped each paper rock into glue, placed it in the center of the butcher paper strip, and wrapped the paper around it like a hot dog bun (sorry, this is one step I should have taken a picture of, but I was in a major hurry - hopefully you get it).  Scrunch the paper around the sides of the paper rock, and then repeat with another paper rock close to the first one.  You should get something that resembles Wilma Flinstone's necklace.  I let these dry completely before moving on. 

When the rocks were dry, I hot glued the bottom (which was originally the top) of the water dish to a piece of grey paper.  Starting at one end of the rock necklace, I hot glued each rock, half on the paper, half on the dish, with the seam of the rocks facing down.  Once those were on, I just cut 5-6 sticks into short pieces and hot glued those around the fire.  Voila!  Cute little campfire centerpieces that are perfectly safe to keep indoors. 
 
Approximate time to craft*: 30 minutes each
Approximate cost for supplies*: $2 each (buying new supplies)
*Please remember that these are just approximations. CopyCrafts makes no guarantee of their accuracy.