Jennifer Kirschnick: Hello! I am Jennifer Kirschnick with Baltimore Garden Company and
today we are talking about how to decorate the outside of your house for
the holidays. The next thing I am going to show you how to make, this is a
pretty involved project. This is for you really Gung-Ho people who want
something different from all your neighbors and it is a decoration that you
hang above your door, you do not place it on your door. But you would
hang it if you have a it works well if you have a nice ledge above your
door that it can sit on. When I am finished telling you how to make it, we
will talk about how to hang it. In this, obviously, we are just half done,
because I want to show you how to put everything together the right way.
These are the kind of decorations you see a lot in Colonial Williamsburg,
where they have all the fruit decorations. What you want to start with is,
you want plywood that is about half inch thick, you can get away with
quarter inch but half inch is better. This actually started out, it was a
rectangular piece of plywood and you want to measure the width of your
door and make the width about the same as the width of your door and
then you have the width of the door, it is going to be your radius that you
use. So, once you get your wood cut, you are going to obviously use a saw
to cut the wood into this arch shape. Then, you can start measuring for
how you are going to place your fruit, so that it is in a symmetrical kind of
pattern.
The next thing you do is you actually want to spray paint it, a green color
that just so, no bare spot shows through. Then once the paint dries, then
you can get started, putting on your marking lines onto the board and it is
hard to see, but this one actually has different lines on it to show where the
different materials are going to be placed. This is a little handy tool that
you can make to make sure that everything is symmetrical, placed
symmetrically on your design and all it is, is a piece of wood with a nail in
it. For your first outline, for instance, on this board, it is where our
Magnolia leaves go. You just take your nail and this has markings on it,
measurements. We are going to use the lowest measurement, put the nail
in; we also have a hole screwed in the board down here. Then you can use
it to draw out your line and then so on and so forth, you just go down the
different holes depending on the size of your fruits.
If you have a smaller apple, you would place the hole, where to your
guideline based on the diameter of a smaller apple or if you have a larger
accent, this is an Osage orange, then you would make the guidelines a
little bit bigger to match where the Osage oranges are going to be placed.
You do not have to use these, this is if you are really one of those engineer
type people who likes to be super accurate, you can also just eyeball it, if
you want to, which is usually the way I do it. Then you can start attaching
all your greens and your fruit and the first thing you usually want to put on
are the outermost plant which for us is going to be Magnolia leaves,
Southern Magnolia leaves. You just take leaves off of a branch like this
and you just pick the leaves off of it. You want them all to be about the
same size and once you do that, then you actually want to take scissors
and you cut the bottom of the leaves just about an inch of the bottom and
that helps them fit a little bit flatter on your board and you just overlap the
leaves, put them down about an inch on the board, and be careful of your
fingers of course and attach some with a staple gun and then, the next
thing to do is figure out, what you want for your centerpiece, pineapples
are always fun to use. It is a sign of from colonial times, I believe of
welcome. So, you would place your pineapple in the center, again you can
measure with and make a pencil mark and so you know exactly where the
center is.
This is actually, we call impaling it on the nail and we have nails in our
board and then we have just chuffed this pineapple into the nail. Usually
use about three nails for a piece of fruit that size and then you can put your
other fruit around it, after you have your outer edge and your centerpiece.
You can use all different kinds of fruits, you can use lemons, oranges,
apples, Granny Smith, or the red apples, pine cones, you can use
boxwood, you would place the fruit, this actually is not fruit, it is actually
seeds of a plant but then you can draw like a circle where it is going to be.
Then you just put your nail in the center of that circle, you just hammer a
nail and these are common nails, you want maybe two-and-a-half inch
long nail. Then once you get your nails put in, the pattern that you want
your fruits, then you just take your fruit, I am going to say, use an apple
and you would just, we call it impaling, kind of a fun word. You just put
the apple on the nail, just again be careful, you do not put the nail through
your hands, so just be careful as you are doing it, just twist it onto the nail.
You can also do it two ways, you can put your greens on first and then
once you have your nails, and then put the greens around the nails. You
can use greens, you can use pine, just put the pine around. Then, once you
have all your fruit on, if there is any bare spot, just continue to stick little
pieces of greens in, just tuck them in. So, they do not fall off, then at the
bottom of that, you can use boxwood or this is actually Japanese holly
which is similar. But a lot of people like the smell of boxwood and you
just attach that at the bottom. Then you use your staple gun and you can
just staple it to the board, maybe in a couple of different places. Then, the
very important part of this, to make sure you are safe is the hanging,
securing it correctly, you want to drill a hole into the plywood, you can
use a bit that is made for wood.
Then, you attach pretty heavy gauge wire, if you can the best way to do it
is to find out exactly what your creation weighs, if you have a scale, you
can weigh it. It is not, you can guesstimate and I would get a wire that can
hold a good 50 pounds or so if possible. If you can not find wire, that is
heavy, you might need to put a couple of holes in, with lesser gauge wire.
Then, when you are going to attach this above your door, then you want to
screw with at least two and a half inch long wood screws at the base of
your decoration to attach them to the bottom of -- the trim at the bottom of
the top part of your door. Again, it is just something finding different that
people always, when they are walking by do a double take and always
point it on, seem to enjoy it.
So, we have talked about how to make a decoration for your door and
mostly made out of wood and fruit and the next thing that we are going to
go over is some tips on hanging holiday lights.
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