I was almost beside myself with joy when I suddenly had the idea that if the hole in the centre of a wreath was made to be a specific size, I realised I could use my Cinnamon Starburst Wreath as a gorgeous Christmas table centre-piece with a candle burning in the middle.
Well, I've been planning and refining it to make it as perfect as possible for you and now it's ready for its full reveal!!
Cinnamon, candles AND Christmas table centre-piece?
{Excitement overload!!}
Let me show you how I unfolded the plan.
This is what I needed:
A kg of cinnamon sticks;
A piece of thick sturdy cardboard;
Some lovely gorgeous material;
Super Glue;
DecoArt So Soft Fabric Paint
Large paintbrush
Step 1
To make the wreath base, I drew around my large pillar candle onto a piece of really thick, strong cardboard. It really does need to be strong to support the weight of the cinnamon sticks.
Then, using a side plate, I drew a larger circle around it.
I cut out the inner circle and around the outer circle so that I had a perfectly-sized wreath base.
Step 2
I began placing the cinnamon sticks onto the wreath base, spacing them evenly.
I attached the cinnamon sticks to the base using Super Glue.
Oh my goodness, that stuff is STRONG!
{Top tip: don't tap your fingers together to see if you have glue on them. Yup, that was me!!}
You can either apply the Gorilla Super Glue to the sticks or directly to the base itself. Try to use the thicker pieces first, as the thinner sticks are good for filling in gaps at the end.
Then I slowly built up further layers of cinnamon sticks until I had three or four layers around the middle. It needs this many otherwise it looks sparse around the edges.
I used shorter pieces for the final layer.
Step 3
I wanted my Cinnamon Starburst to look super-duper Christmassy as both a centre-piece AND a wreath so I wanted to add a snow effect.
I used DecoArt So Soft Fabric Paint in White.
Yes, I know cinnamon sticks aren't made of fabric, but when I tested various ways of getting the snow effect I was after, this created exactly the look I wanted.
I used my paint brush to dry-brush the paint onto the cinnamon sticks.
To dry-brush, you only need a small amount of paint on the brush at any time. So, dip the brush in your paint and dab it repeatedly onto an absorbent cloth. Can you see how dry the paint looks on my brush?
Then you need to almost rub the brush onto the sticks, rather than normal back-and-forth painting.
Ideally, you only want to cover each section once to avoid a painted look; I wanted more of a 'freshly fallen scattering of snow'.
That's why I used my 4 inch brush. It's coverage is quick and excellent for dry brushing. It's really worth using a good quality brush like this one. Who wants to be picking out paint hairs afterwards!!?
Now for the fun bit!!
If you want to use the Cinnamon Starburst Wreath for a table centre-piece, you just slot the large pillar candle into the middle and light up!
It looks SO beautfiul, and as the candle warms the cinnamon sticks, the whole room is filled with the most gorgeous aromatic fragrance.
And now for the magic second step!
To use the cinnamon starburst as a wreath, remove the candle, loop a length of gorgeous fabric through the centre of the wreath and hang it up!
I used two layers of material, one in snowy white and the other a red gingham to give the Cinnamon Starburst wreath a Christmas-in-the-Country feel!
This is the Transformer of the wreath world!! A wreath and table centre-piece two-in-one!!
Merry Christmas to you all, my lovely friends.
