{Unfinished} Chinese New Year Centerpiece

Do you celebrate Chinese New Year? We do.

Sorta.

Our “celebration” is usually just a decorated table and homemade Chinese food.

This year, thanks to Pinterest, I was inspired by this post to make a centerpiece for the table.

Here’s how I made it.

I roughly cut a rectangle out of the gold lame to wrap around the plastic container. I wrap the plastic container with the gold lame and used hot glue to secure it. (This is where I REPEATEDLY burned my fingers with the hot glue. LoL)

I squeezed some hot glue into the bottom of the container and add a layer of poly pellets. I did 2 layers. (The pellets will give the centerpiece a little weight to keep from tipping over.) Then I cut a rectangle out of felt and glued it over the pellets to keep them from coming out if the centerpiece gets knocked over.

I painted my skewers red since I was out of gold. But I did swipe some gold fabric paint over the red for a little sparkle.

While the skewers were drying, I wrapped the outer ring of the embroidery hoop with gold ribbon and used a drop of hot glue to secure the ends. I covered the inner ring of the embroidery hoop with the red felt and added the outer ring onto the inner ring.

To make the firecrackers I laid a piece of gold foil on top of red foil and wrapped it around the mini spools and used a drop of glue to secure the foil. I glued one end of a skewer into the spool , added a small piece of silver pipe cleaner to the other end for the fuse and tied off the ends with fishing line.

I wrapped a piece of red foil around a styrofoam block that fits inside my container. I added a drop of hot glue to the bottom of the styrofoam to secure the foam inside the container.

I pinned the hoop to the styrofoam and added the “firecrackers” all around it. Then I took a string of red beads to fill the inside of the container. (And to cover the glue from the firecracker holes.)

This is kinda where my inspiration stopped. I wanted more gold in it but couldn’t find the supplies I had in mind. In fact, in MY small town, it’s really hard to find the things you need. So here is the unfinished centerpiece that I will use at dinner tonight. On the red felt inside the hoop I plan to print a picture of that year’s animal and stick it on the red felt.

Here’s what the center piece looks like so far:

Happy Chinese New Year anyway!