Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Make a Display Stand

I wanted to highlight the pedestal display stand that I made, but I think my turkey cookie cutter is stealing the show!

My new weakness is attending rummage sales.  A suburban-version of "picking," I have really found some treasures lately.  An entire bag of antique cookie cutters was just 25 cents.  I collect cookie cutters, as you know, and I couldn't turn down this grouping that included a cow, horse and now regal turkey.  

When I was in the kitchen adding the book page fringe to my cake plate, I noticed how "at home" the tin cookie cutters looked with this color palate.  I knew that I would display them here before the glue was dry.

Okay, onto the cake plate.  I was inspired to make my own from an article I saw in Family Circle - their display stand was black with decoupaged Halloween paper.  But I like what I saw and tweaked it for my style.

2-tier Display Stand 

2 unfinished wooden plates (12" and 13")
1 unfinished wooden candlestick
1 inexpensive wooden embroidery hoop
a bottle of acrylic paint (Martha Stewart craft paint at Michael's Craft in "Wet Cement")
a bottle of decoupage medium
a book you can craft with
scissors
Xacto knife or rotary blade
Scalloped rotary blade
a bottle of Sobo craft glue
small adhesive felt pads/circles

Use Elmer's wood glue to attach one embroidery hoop (the piece without the metal) to the center of the bottom of the larger plate.  This raises the plate off the surface and allows room for the fringe.

Use wood glue to glue the bottom of the candlestick to the center of the top of the larger plate.  When it is dry, put wood glue on top of the candlestick and center the bottom of the smaller plate on top of it.  (Both plates should be facing up.)  Allow to dry.

Paint all of the exposed wood (although I skipped the hoop and bottom of largest plate - no one will see it).  Allow to dry.

Coat all of the painted areas with a thin coat of decoupage medium.  This gives your display stand a more finished (and less chalky) appearance. Allow to dry.

Cut (1 inch wide x 6 inches long) strips from an old book, by placing a ruler along the page and running an Xacto knife or rolling blade (be careful!) through several pages at once.  Trim off the inch or so of blank paper that was the book margin on each end.  

Run a scalloped rotary cutter along one side (of the 6 inch long strips) to create a wavy line.  Use scissors to cut short vertical snips to make the strip fringe.  Glue the uncut edge (above the fringe) to the edge of the smaller plate.  Glue the strips of fringe around the plate with Sobo or craft glue, overlapping the ends to create a seamless look.

Make another set of fringed strips for the larger bottom plate, but make the strips about 1/2 as wide.  So these strips should be 1/2 inch wide and 6 inches long.  Scallop, fringe and glue as above.

Place a few adhesive felt pads on the bottom of the embroidery hoop to prevent scratching your table.

Enjoy!

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