house beautiful christmas decorating ideas
this is aluminum flashing. it's a contractor's best friend, you can use it for eaves trough,s chimneys, make a robot if you'd like. but today, we're gonna use it for some holiday decorations. just looking ahead so you don't think i'm crazy, i'm going to show you how to make this really cool cone. it's almost like a sconce but you hold flowers, outdoor/indoor. also some great holiday decorations, kind of more traditional with a hammered metal effect. and then also there's these really cute christmas tree ornaments. symbol on their own but when you make a pair or a few, it can be really pretty. so i've cut a piece out, roughly the size i'm going to need, it's about 1 ft x 1 ft maybe a little bigger.
and i've cheated but you can do this at home too, i basically made a template out of paper. i did this with pencil in the corner, tied a string, and drew along the line, it makes the perfect arc every time. and then you pull out some scissors. you'll see how easy that cuts. another trick is when you get to about that point, just cut off the excess because it'll make it a little easier as we go along. and then don't throw this away, we can use it later. so we've got our, i guess, 1/4 circle cut out to make the cone shape. this corner will be the peak of the cone, like the bottom portion, and we're just going to roll it and kind of bend it at the same time, just making a cone.
if everyone's done this out of paper i'm sure, so don't be scared. and then once you've got it in place believe it or not, you can just take some standard scotch tape and hold it there with tape. and we're going to fasten it a little better in a second but this kind of just makes it easier to work with. so we're already getting the shape, that's good. the next thing we need to do is punch a hole in the back. this is a hole punch. it can be more difficult to go through 2 pieces, we're going to test our luck. there we go.
see, that's why you should only go through one layer because it'll get stuck. so you just need to kind of pull that out there. so now you have a hole, perfect. i'm ready to put a piece of wire which will hold it together and be what we hang it from. one thing i forgot to mention before we actually add the wire, i want to crimp the bottom slightly. i've got some wire cutters. and that's just going to hold the bottom portion in place and then the top will hold the top portion in place. and to be honest, you can leave the tape, it's extra support and you don't even notice it. okay so wire, this is 20 gauge, it could be thinner than this.
just attach that there and you're done. that's the basic hanging thing and then there's the shape. and then you just need to fill it with whatever you'd like. i did these 2 ahead of time. that one's some berries and some ribbon hanging there, a little more contemporary. and then there's a more traditional one that i've hung on the wall, some greenery and some velvet ribbon. pretty, eh? remember this, the piece that i told you to keep earlier? it turned into these, these are some holiday decorations.
also, they can be used as name tags. this one i did earlier, it's just a little christmas tree shape, and all we need to left to do is attach a piece of ribbon. to personalize this little guy, i'm going to put the initial of someone i might give a present to. just in pencil, you can see it just enough, and then when it's done you can wipe it away. and really all you need is a hammer and a nail. it's gonna be a little loud, sorry guys. and you just go along. isn't that cute? just hang it on the tree or you can put it right on the gift and then they can hang it on their tree when they're done.
the final project, we have basically the same idea again. i've made this template out of paper. and just trace it on with pencil and cut it out and you end up with a flat piece like this. it's just a matter of bending it. bend it here so this becomes the base and that's where the candle is actually gonna sit. just going to set it down. and then really, the only other step is to put a votive in there. and you could put in a little glass container but i think it's kind of cute a little rustic. anyway, metal flashing, it's really inexpensive, easy to work with, and anyone can do it, who knew!