How to Make Feather Trees

Feather tree centerpieces are quite eye-catching. You can use exotic feathers, such as ostrich, peacock or pheasant. You can also use bright, colorful, dyed craft feathers to create a table tree that goes perfectly with the decor or party theme colors.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Styrofoam cone
• Craft glue
• Toothpick
• Feathers
• (Optional) paint

Making a Feather Table Tree

1. Spread newspapers or an old cloth over your work area.

2. (Optional) Paint the Styrofoam cone with craft paint to match the feathers. Allow the cone to dry completely.

3. Start at the base of the Styrofoam cone. Using the toothpick, carefully poke in a neat row of holes approximately 1/2 inch from the bottom. The closer together you make the holes, the denser your feather tree will be --- meaning it will require more feathers to fully cover the cone. The distance between holes also depends on the thickness of your feather. As a general rule, space the holes so that the feathers will overlap slightly at the base. So if the feather is 1 inch thick, spacing every 1/2 inch would be reasonable.

4. Dip the feather quill in glue and then stick the quill into the Styrofoam. Hold and allow the glue to set for a moment. Continue this process, filling in the holes. Allow the entire row a chance to set before starting the next row.

5. Punch in another row of holes. Center these holes between the ones below so the feathers will layer more like bricks. (NOTE: As you go up the cone, the circumference gets smaller, so you will have fewer holes on some layers than on previous layers. Simply spread them out as evenly as possible.) As to how high up to place the next row, this too depends on how dense you want the feathers. Hold a couple of feathers over the bottom row, moving them until the row height looks appealing to you.

6. Repeat the glue and feather attachment step. Always let the new row have a chance to firm into place before starting the next row.

7. Continue punching holes and gluing in feathers row by row until you reach the top of the cone.

8. Punch a hole in the top of the cone and glue in a spray of 3 to 7 feathers, arranged so they fan out.

Tips & Warnings

• You might use feathers of different lengths--longer at the bottom and shorter at the top. You could intersperse different feather lengths throughout the cone for a more irregular and natural shaped tree. You might want to use different colors on each of the bands for a striped tree. For the spray on top, you might consider a different feather, one that would give the tree top a drippy look. Consider a rooster's tail feather.

[austinstar]

on 8/22/2009 I would love to see a photo of this feather tree!