Anthro-Inspired Pears

Lately I've been in total "Purge" mode.  This weekend I was sorting through my stacks of catalogs and magazines and tearfully parting with some of the older issues.

In my "toss" pile, I came across the holiday catalog from Anthropologie.

I thought these decoupage animal ornaments were cute when I had seen them the first time around, but rhinos didn't exactly fit in with my Christmas "theme". 

But I filed the idea away into my "I bet I can make this..." file.

[photo: anthropologie]

After I recycled the catalog, I started the Great Office Update of 2011 and found these pears shoved in a basket in another corner. 

Go. Figure. :)

They were originally Christmas tree ornaments that I had bought at Hobby Lobby in a post-Christmas 90%-off-fueled-frenzy.

When I got them they were a raspberry color with a black metallic glaze.  YeahNo.  So I gave them a coat of heirloom white paint and used them as vase filler last winter.

But you can see the paint is chipping and it had bubbled and peeled in several places.

So, they would be getting a freshening-up.

I had my lovely assistant gather them up for me.
Before the pears received their makeover, they were part of a lesson in counting.
Cute AND educational!  Bonus! :)

I forgot to take pictures, so bear with me.
I took a thrift store book (I wanted the aged look of the pages,
and also the book pages were also heavier than newspaper, which I liked)
and I cut strips of varying lengths and widths, to accommodate the curves of the pears.
Then I just used Modge Podge to 'paint' the paper onto the pears.
Let 'em dry.

The finished product:

Every material I used was something I already had on hand, and my total time investment was about a half-hour.  I have the attention span of a gnat and this was no problem :)
These looked great in a glass hurricane, and I also have them on a crisp white platter.

Happy Crafting!

Cheers,

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