STAY and Co. BLOG: THANKSGIVING TABLETOP: A GEOMETRIC TWIST

This month for our Cricut Design Space Star Challenge, our team chose the theme: Tabletop/On the Table. I knew this would be the perfect opportunity to get something together for the holidays so I chose to think ahead to Thanksgiving. I wanted to put a modern twist on the traditional Thanksgiving decor so I decided on some geometric planters that I plan on putting fresh flowers in for the big turkey day. The more I use my Cricut Explorer, the more I fall in love with it and all the possibilities!

I combined a bunch of elements to get my tabletop centerpiece so I will break it down for you. Check out the tutorial below.

I was inspired by Sara's wooden box centerpieces. But of course, being the gold lover that I am, I knew I needed to throw that in somehow and I wanted to add some color so I decided to make some paper flowers using Cricut's Large Flower Cartridge (downloadable version on design space).

Here is what I did...

Supplies:

balsa wood (I got mine at Michael's)
wood glue (or hot glue would work great as well)
exacto knife
card stock - gold glitter card stock or whatever you want to decorate your boxes with, as well as colorful card stock for the flowers
gold Cricut pen
plants or flowers (I used my Ikea plants as well as other florals I had in my closet for the styling of the photos)

Directions:

Decide how big you want your boxes to be - I wanted 3 varying sizes and heights to make a statement in the middle of my table. I chose to use Balsa wood because it is so easy to cut. I started with the largest and then went from there, kind of eyeballing it and cutting as I went along. Grab something to put under the wood as you cut with your exacto knife and just go for it making sure all your sides are the same size (duh, right?) Super easy!
Once I had all my pieces cut, I glued the edges together with the wood glue. Stand the pieces up as you do this to make sure they are all touching the table so that when they dry, they will stand properly. I used random kitchen objects to help prop up the sides as they dried. I decided not to worry about putting a bottom piece on because I knew I would have to put the pots or flowers in a vase of sorts inside the boxes anyways. Let dry for an hour or so.
Once you have assembled your boxes, you are ready to decorate. I chose 3 types of gold paper to vary the looks of each box. In hindsight, I could have used gold vinyl to eliminate the gluing step. Next time!
I measured my boxes out to see how big I wanted my geometric shapes to be.
I then designed my imperfect squares and triangles in Illustrator, uploaded them to Design Space and cut them on my Cricut Explorer. This literally only took like 3 minutes! So much better than cutting everything by hand. I used a basic rectangle that comes free on Design Space and resized it to make my gold strips for the smallest box.
Once everything was cut, I laid it out and glued the card stock on the balsa wood using plain old school glue. Let dry and your boxes are done!
I used the Cricut Explorer again to make the simple "Thankful" sign. It's awesome that you can write and cut at the same time! I just put the Cricut gold pen in, typed it out in Design Space and added the rectangle around it to cut it.
I made 2 little legs with the Balsa wood so my "Thankful" sign would stand on it's own in front of my wooden boxes by cutting small squares with a slit to slide the paper in.
Once I had these two things done, I wanted to add some color and what better way that with flowers? The Large Flower Cartridge was the perfect touch! I downloaded the templates for the flowers right there on Design Space, sized them and let the Explorer do it's thing.
The flowers took a little bit of some time to assemble and glue, but nothing you can't do in front of your favorite TV show for 40 minutes. I used this tutorial to follow to put them all together. Once they were made, I just placed them on the table to add the finishing touch to my Thanksgiving centerpiece.