Looking for rustic decor ideas that you can whip up in minutes? You can easily create a fabulous DIY farmhouse decor with these adorable cotton branches!
cotton ballspull the fibers apart or use surgical cotton wool which is already loose
long thin branches or sticks
Instructions
Make sure your egg cartons are clean (I had a few stained by broken eggs and had to get those out of the way as they were pretty smelly).
Separate each egg cup from the carton by cutting them with scissors.
Clip through the four indentations with your scissors
Trim the tip of each segment
Cut petal-like shapes around the egg cups to form the pods of the cotton boll.
I used two slightly different methods to form the pods.
For method one, after shaping the egg cartons as above, I proceeded to painting the egg carton pods as they were. I grabbed the paint brush and painted the pods on the inside and outside. Then I gently bent the petals towards the center of the pods. These pods ended up looking like closed cotton bolls that have just started to "bloom"
For the second method, after shaping the petals, I first pressed the petals flat.
Then I folded them to the back, towards the back side of the pod.
I painted them brown and then bent the petals towards the middle. These pods ended up looking like cotton bolls in full bloom after I filled them with surgical cotton wool.
After painting your pods, leave them to dry completely (I left them overnight), preferably face down (top of the petals facing the working surface).
When the pods are dry, stuff with surgical cotton wool. If using cotton balls, pull the fibers apart and make the balls as fluffy as possible before filling the pods. You may need to use 2-3 cotton balls per pod.
The surgical cotton wool I used seem pretty sticky so I didn't feel the need to hot glue it to the pods. But you may need to if using cotton balls so test first, before filling all your pods. If the cotton balls fall out of the pods you need to hot glue them to the inside of the pods using a couple of drops of hot glue applied to the bottom of the pods.
When all pods are filled with cotton balls or surgical cotton, use your glue gun to apply glue to the back of the pods, on the bottom and glue them to the branch.
If you have a branch with more sticks, attach the pods to the tip of each of these sticks. If your branch is thinner, apply the pods along the branch as I did and use a few good branches to decorate your vase.
Paint the glue spots in brown to mask and blend with the branch. Although you might be tempted to skip this step, this final touch truly makes your cotton branches looking less handmade!
Gather your branches and place them in a vase and start admiring your beautiful work!