Homemade Cornucopia Tutorial

I am sooo excited to show this to you.  There are hardly any traditional Thanksgiving tutorials out there, especially for decor that is cheap and will last many years, so here is an easy (but somewhat time consuming) homemade cornucopia.  I did find a similar project on Martha Stewart, but I modified it, especially by making my own base instead of buying one.

1.  The base of the cornucopia is paper mache!  It's cheap and super flexible to whatever size and shape of cornucopia you want.  Just make the initial shape out of newspaper and tape in shape.  Make sure you put a barrier between the form and the paper mache so you can pull it out fairly easily when it's dry.  I just used several layers of dry, non-taped down newspaper as my barrier and it worked great.

2. Use strips of newspaper and your paper mache mixture to coat the entire cornucopia.  Make sure to make it at least 5 or more layers thick. You'll want it to be sturdy.  Also, overlap the ends of the strips of newspaper to make it strongest (think, like bricks are staggered).  My paper mache recipe isn't exact, but it's a mixture flour, water, and lots of elmer's glue.  Then, make sure it's completely dry.  Mine took about 2 days, after rotating it so the bottom and everywhere gets dry.  If you notice a weak place, you can always make some more paper mache and continue building it up.  Also, once it's sturdy enough, pull the cornucopia shaped-mold out so the inside dries.

3.  Good news- the time consuming stuff is over! --The next two steps only take about an hour! Then once the paper mache is dry, line the whole thing with burlap, to give it some color.  It doesn't have to be perfect, especially if you're good with the raffia (the next step).  Hot glue the burlap in place, making sure to flip the burlap around the edges of the mouth of the cornucopia.

You definitely DO NOT need 2 yards like Martha says.  Maybe she made a giant cornucopia, but I only used less than 1/2 a yard.  I did do some patchwork with the burlap, but it doesn't really matter because it will all be covered up (except in the inside)

4.  Cover the burlap with a continuous spiral of raffia.  Keep the spiral (a small handful of raffia at a time works the best) going from the very top spire of the cornucopia.  I discovered that I liked the look better if all of the raffia wasn't immediately stuck tight, so after I wrapped the whole shape, I went back over and added some raffia that splayed out a little.  Everything was hot glued.

I actually used a LOT less raffia and more hot glue than I thought I would.  I bought a big bag of raffia (for $6 I think) and used less than half of it.  I also used up an entire bag of hot glue sticks, just to give you an idea.

Finished!

Enjoy! I'd love to see pictures of your own handmade conrnucopias! Just send them my way-- nallyanna@gmail.com