Sunday, November 16, 2014

D.I.Y Reef


Hello my beautiful friends!! Today I am going to show you how to this D.I.Y reef. Recently, my mom wanted to make our own reef and we came across this one and fell in love with it. So we ended up doing it and I thought I would show you guys how to do it too. So without further ado, lets begin!

Materials:
- A large metal/wood ring (base of the reef)
- Lots of paper with old print (black and white, yellow, stained. I would recommend at least 100 pieces of paper for a small, 200 for medium, and 300 for a large.)
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks (one-two packs of glue sticks)
- Ribbon of your choice(optional)
- Patience and Time
Steps:
 

Step One: You first have to role up all the papers into "cones" that will be going all around the reef. If you need some paper templetes, here are some:
These are just a few. You can always get more by typing in old music sheets, old book pages, old drawings and old news papers into a search engine. The best part of this reef is that it can be completely up to you. It can be colorful pages to images that you love. What ever you want. You will simply roll up all the paper into cones and super glue that page together to hold the shape.
 

 
Now just repeat this step until all the papers are in cones. It may take awhile but it is so worth it. Not to mention, you can always have a helper like I did. It can be fun.
Step 2: Now that you have all of your paper in cone shape, you are ready to start building your reef!! This is the fun part. Now I will try by best to explain what to do along the way but if I don't make sense, hopefully the pictures help you out more.
 Take the four paper cones of your choice and place them at every side of the wood ring. Like so:
You are going to continue placing the paper cones in a symmetrical pattern. Or in other words, you need to place the cones in a even distances around the reef. I highly suggest placing your cones where you want them before you glue them to see how it would look before making it permanent. You repeat this until the wood circle is covered in papers, or pretty close to covered like so:
Each "layer" that you add, make sure to move the paper cones more into the center so that when the reef is done, you can see the layers around the edges to of the reef. Glue each cone to the one behind it with enough glue on it to hold it. You also want to make sure that you hold the newly glued cone gently down for a few second to allow the paper to stick and dry.
You keep following these steps until you have used all of your paper, or like how the reefs looks. You can always along the way pick the reef up and see how it looks, you would be surprised how it looks different once you sit it up. Keep in mind that the more paper you add to the reef, the bigger it will look. Try to figure out before you start the reef, where you are going to put it. If it is a small area, make a small reef with less paper and a smaller wood circle. And vice versa for a big area. I personally did a big one, so use mine as a reference.
Step 3: This step is optional but if you have a space you want to fill in or you want to add a special touch, you can add a bow or ribbon. If you are not a bow tying expert, I would suggest getting one already done in the store when you pick up your supplies. It adds a nice touch and can really bring the reef together.

And that it is!! You just made a home made reef. Give yourself a pat on the back for all that hard work. Now you have a real personal piece to place in your home. I hope you guys enjoyed and found this to be fun. I know the lighting is weird in these pictures and videos but it was late at night, sorry. Let me know if you did this yourself because I would love to see it. Good luck and have fun. And as always, until next time,
<3

3 comments :

Thank you so much for taking time to read my post and leave a comment. It means a lot to me!!
<3