Saturday, December 22, 2012

Drapery Finials From Foam Balls


Trying to glue the lace on was tedious especially avoiding getting burned by the glue.


Present finials and curtain rod. As you can see after falling the one in the middle lacks its tip.

Drapery finials are pretty expensive. The ones that came with my curtain rods were large for the area but since they weren't being moved on a regular basis it was okay. I had foam balls left over from a project and didn't want to throw them away. By now if you've read any of my previous posts you know that I am a frugal person who doesn't like to throw anything away. BUT! I hasten to say I AM NOT A HOARDER. I tried hot gluing lace onto a foam ball with the idea of  painting lace and ball with a metallic acylic paint. I wasn't pleased with the outcome. I ended up throwing those 2 balls away. See, I'm not a hoarder. 


 After painting one of the balls weith the sage green metallic paint, I noticed that the paint wasn't really grabbing. There were six balls in the package so I had enough for a do over since I only needed 4. This time I roughed up the balls a little with sandpaper. Here you have to be careful or you'll end up sanding away the whole ball or getting it uneven. I decided on a bronze mettallic paint. I painted it with two coats of the bronze but it could have stood a couple more coats.


 I used wooden cutouts, hot glue and permanent markers for the embellishments
The third ball from the right shows where I made the indentation for the curtain rod.

Before I did any painting I skewered each ball with the curtain rod so that it would fit after I finished it and also to use as a guide for gluing on the embellishments.  I removed the foam stuck inside the curtain rod with a disjointed wire hanger (the kind Joan Crawford allegedly would go bonkers about)
 
This is a photo of the finials at the end of a valance. I ended up putting a little double sided tape on the inside of each finial so there would be more grab to keep them on.

Here is a closeup of the finial.

Right now I'm satisfied with the results and that's all that matters.
THAT'S IT***

1 comment:

  1. Lovely job! I used bronze spray paint with great success. The paint caused etching on the balls and so I got a really cool textured look.

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