How to make a coffee tree with your own hands?

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:35

Topiary is often used in the decorative design of the room. These are small artificial trees created from various materials. The history of the emergence of this art dates back to the distant past, during the time of the Roman emperors, who greatly encouraged gardeners who formed various figures from the crown of bushes and trees, both geometric and animal images.

In our time, topiary has acquired a slightly different meaning, most often this concept is called small trees created from natural or artificial materials. The method of making such crafts is identical, they differ in decorating the components of the structure.

In the article, we will consider how to make a coffee tree with your own hands, what you need to purchase for this, how to work consistently, how you can decorate the crown of the tree and its trunk, how to hide the base so that it looks aesthetically.

Topiary components

Each craft can differ significantly in both materials and decoration. However, there are certain standard manufacturing canons that apply to every job.

1. Flower pot. It is advisable to use a ceramic product for crafts. Pots of a non-standard shape look interesting, for example, in the form of a teapot or a square shape. However, even if you use an ordinary clay pot, you can always decorate it yourself with an ornament or decorate it with a hemp rope or burlap. Decorating can be a creative process as it is an important part of the craft.
2. The trunk of the future coffee tree. Any material is chosen, depending on the shape of the trunk. It can be short and thick, long and thin, twisted, like a spring, multi-stemmed or reminiscent of a bonsai. They use tree branches, a wooden stick, metal rods, a cardboard napkin roll, etc.
3. The basis for the crown. If earlier a spherical crown was used to create a coffee tree, now a variety of options are possible: the shape of a heart and a ringlet, a flower and a cone. Often, before gluing the main decor for the crown, the foam base is wrapped with threads, rope, pasted over with paper napkins or other materials, but this is not necessary.
4. Formation of the crown. Here you can use a variety of materials. These are paper and satin ribbons, artificial flowers and small foam fruits, cones and bows, beads, coins and even pasta. Our article will talk about creating a crown from coffee beans.
5. Decorating crafts. In this part of the work, the master can bring to life any of the most daring ideas. There are coffee trees with a rather ordinarydecoration, for example, a satin ribbon bow at the top of the trunk. But there are also the most real design masterpieces. Indeed, in decorating, you can use sisal, dried fruits, organza and crepe paper, attach flowers made of polymer clay or a "lightning" with a scattering of coins. It all depends on the flight of the master's imagination.

Required materials for work

In order not to be distracted in the process of making wood from coffee beans, you need to prepare all the necessary materials on the desktop in advance. Consider the shape of the tree and, depending on the option chosen, choose both the base for the crown and the stem for the trunk. Foam products are used due to the fact that parts are easily attached to a smooth surface. For connection, you can use either thick PVA or a glue gun. PVA will be enough to apply the grains themselves to the base.

A do-it-yourself coffee tree is installed in a pot. However, in order for it to hold well, it is best to create a filler from gypsum. Also prepare a mixing spoon, a handy bowl and a container of water.

Place coffee beans and decoration material in separate bowls for ease of use. Next, consider the types of bases for the crown of a coffee tree.

Foam cores

Now on sale there is a huge range of products for needlework. It is convenient to use them in the manufacture of topiary, as they can easily make a recess for a tree rod.

For the crown of a tree from coffee beans, you canuse any foam base. These are a traditional ball, a cone, a heart, both solid and hollow, a flower, etc. In the article, we tried to select examples of tree samples of various shapes so that the reader has an idea of the result of the work.

DIY coffee tree: a step-by-step master class

First of all, the basis for gluing grains for the crown of the tree is selected. Having decided, painstaking and scrupulous work begins. Coffee beans are glued with a rounded side, so the glue must be strong enough. You can use D-3 - this is a professional PVA glue. If the master has a glue gun in his assortment, then you can use it.

The ideal bean placement is double wrapping. The first layer is applied with the flat side of the coffee, when the entire base is covered with beans, another final layer is applied, however, the beans are already turned over. They look so beautiful because of the notch in the middle. Coffee beans are arranged in a checkerboard pattern so that the white foam base is completely invisible on the finished product.

Stem preparation

To make a coffee tree with your own hands (see the photo of the step-by-step process above), you need to choose a rod, according to the plan. As mentioned above, it can be absolutely any shape. The stem is branched and even, narrow and thick. However, in order for it to look aesthetically pleasing on the craft, it must be decorated.

For winding sticks or branches use strips of fabric, satinribbons, hemp rope, artificial twine, knitting yarn. Start winding by attaching the edge of the selected material. Then the glue is no longer applied, and the winding is simply wrapped around the rod. All turns must be tight so that the wooden or paper base is not visible.

From above, the coffee bean topiary stem is inserted into a foam ball or other base. To do this, you need to leave a small unglued area on it. The stick is inserted into the hole made and sits on a strong glue. It is necessary to give some time for the glue to harden, and then apply coffee beans to the empty area.

The main part of the work has been done, it remains to work on the flower pot and strengthening the trunk into it. How to make a coffee tree so that it stands evenly, you will learn further from the article.

How to strengthen a tree in a pot?

Since the crown of the coffee tree (see the photo of the crafts in the article) is quite heavy, the trunk will not be able to stay in the pot with a simple filler. Typically, craftsmen use a solution made from gypsum and water. In any construction market, you can buy gypsum powder by weight. One kilogram will be enough. For kneading, take an old bowl. The solution can be kneaded with a small spatula or a banal tablespoon.

The powder is poured into a bowl and a small depression is made in the middle, where cold water is subsequently poured. Everything is thoroughly mixed to a state of thick sour cream. Then onthe bottom of the flower pot is laid out with a circle pre-cut along the diameter of the bottom, the purpose of which is to cover the existing hole in the standard product.

It remains to pour a solution of gypsum into the container and after a short period of time insert a stick of wood. Care must be taken not to miss the right moment, as the mixture sets quickly enough.

Helpful advice

In order not to miss the necessary moment when the gypsum mortar hardens, you can use the lid on the flower pot. It is made of thick cardboard, you can use corrugated packaging material. On it, circle the top of the pot with a pencil and cut out a slightly smaller circle so that it fits freely into the container.

Then, after pouring the gypsum mixture into the pot, you need to insert a cardboard stand for the trunk, and insert the made tree into the hole. The stand will help the craft to maintain a vertical position. After the mass has completely solidified, all that remains is to remove the cardboard ring by cutting it from the side.

Tree species

Tropiaria, decorated with coffee beans, differ not only in the shape of the base for the crown of the tree. We have already touched on this topic earlier in the article. Let's look at how you can modify the options for the trunk. If you want your tree to squirm beautifully, then a thick wire is taken to make the stem and with the help of pliers give it any curved shape, for example, a wavy line or a curved hook down.

If two topiaries with different branches are combined in one pot, then they should bedifferent heights so that the crowns do not interfere with each other. There are original crafts with one trunk, which has a bonsai branch in the upper part.

Such a tree looks impressive and takes up a lot of space, so in the apartment you will have to allocate a large space for such a craft, for example, a coffee table or a mantelpiece.

Decorate the trunk of the coffee tree mainly with natural materials. This is a hemp rope of various thicknesses, however, in some cases, artificial winding is also used.

Pot decoration

You can choose any shape for the topiary. It can be square, and unique, designer. Often a tree pot is decorated with burlap, fabric, ribbons, over which lace and braid are glued. At the base of the tree, you can see flowers and balls collected from sisal, dried pieces of lemon or orange, star anise or cinnamon sticks attached.

There are a lot of options, for example, sea pebbles and shells collected during a vacation on the coast. You can wrap the craft with a hemp rope and stick an ornament from the same coffee beans.

Be sure to hide the surface of the plaster mass. The easiest option would be to glue the surface with coffee beans. However, you can fill the top of the pot with sisal thread or crumpled paper.

Crown decoration

You can decorate a tree of coffee beans with your own hands by any meansdecor, however, it must be taken into account that when making crafts from natural material, it will be appropriate to decorate the crown with natural material as well. Although many masters even experiment with plastic butterflies or ribbon flowers.

Because the coffee beans give the craft a smooth texture, it is perfectly acceptable to attach bulky elements.

Advice for beginners

• If you want to save coffee beans, you can apply just one layer, and paint over the foam base with brown acrylic paint.
• If you did not find a foam base on sale, then you can twist a dense ball of crumpled paper from a variety of paper sheets, tie it around the circumference with a thin hemp rope, and only then start gluing.
• You can glue such a ball initially with several layers of a torn napkin like papier-mâché.
• Wooden stick can be replaced with a cardboard roll, filling the middle with crumpled newspaper for strength.

The article describes in detail how to make a coffee tree with your own hands, gives tips and tricks for independent work. After reading, you can easily complete the craft. Good luck and creative success in your work!