"30 Sucks"

My friend, Angie, was complaining earlier this year about how she was going to turn 30. She just thought it might really suck...from there, (and a little web inspiration), this project was born! I bought a terra-cotta pot, a styrofoam cone, moss, pink acrylic paint,ribbon, and some Dum-dums.

From my Cricut, I cut somewhere around 200 (or more) flowers of different sizes from George and Basic Shapes and Walk In My Garden. I cut the words "30 Sucks" from the Old West cart (I welded the letters together on my Gypsy before cutting). The plaque that "30 Sucks" is glued to, is from the Mother's Day 2010 cart. Butterflies are cut from Gypsy Wanderings and have two gemstones of bling near their centers. I cut both the top layer and shadow for the butterflies.

To get started with the project, I painted the terra-cotta pot two times with pink acrylic paint (letting dry between coats...where I cut flowers). Then I used a glue gun to adhere moss all over the styrofoam cone, except for about an inch at the bottom. (Note: You can't really see much moss, except in a few places.) Once all was dry, I carved the bottom of the styrofoam cone to fit snugly, and hot glued it in. From there, I started at the bottom and layered dum-dums with 2 or 3 different flowers per treat, until covered to the top. I tied and hot glued a cute pink with black polka-dot ribbon on the pot. The butterflies are taped to a short green wire, which is pushed into the tree. The "30 Sucks" plaque is supported by two short green wires, which were adhered between the layers of the plaque, then stuck into the top of the tree. I used a silver marker to accent the signage. I also added two paper flowers on each side (the daisy was leftover from a set I had bought at Michael's).

This project took nearly a whole bag of dum-dums. I had intended to use only 31 (so she'd have one to grow on), but I needed more for coverage. The birthday girl seemed to love her "sucky" birthday tree, and I loved making it! I apparently LOVE to torture myself, because now I have another "project" in the works for a friend's baby shower at work, Wednesday. Stay tuned for updates on that! :o)