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Sunday, May 26, 2013

Lo-Cost Cardboard Column Tutorial

 
As you know, I recently coordinated an Old South-themed 'Belles and Beaus Ball' for our Girl Scout service unit!  And one of the projects our committee came up with to help transform our event space (a large metal building that was once used as an airplane hangar) into a southern plantation for our soiree was a set of columns to flank the stage.
 
Now if you have ever shopped for columns or priced column rentals then you know that these babies can be very pricey and a rental would have to be returned.  Any way we sliced it, ready-made columns were just not going to be 'using our resources wisely,' so we had to come up with something else!
 
Luckily, I have a very dear friend in the construction business that I knew might be able to help and I was right!  Yippee!
 
He suggested I take a look at these:
 
 
These are cardboard concrete forms that are approximately (I emphasize it because it turned out to be quite important) 8" in diameter and 4' high.  Just for reference, a similar sized column around here would rent for about $25.00 each (ouch!) and they'd be ours for only one night!
 
 
The cardboard forms were a mere $7.00 each, so here's where I went with it:
 
 
Using inexpensive plastic pots for the top and the bottom, I was able to mimic the look of a roman column with the turned rim.  I envisioned screwing the pot rims to small wooden bases to make them more sturdy and allow us to fill/weight the bottoms of the columns with sand to prevent tipping.
 
And here's the mock-up at Home Depot, who was kind enough to donate all the supplies for this project (including the ferns on top), so it ended up being 'no-cost' columns for us!
 


As you can see from the first picture, we simply painted all the pieces white and them assembled them at the event center!  They were lightweight for transporting and have already been used again at our service unit bridging ceremony!
 
I mentioned earlier that the diameter of these cardboard forms was an issue - because when choosing your pot, the diameter of the column will determine how far down your pot will seat in the form.  it turns out that the two we originally had were not actually the same diameter, which would have made one of the finished columns noticeably taller than the other.  We solved the problem by exchanging one for another at a different store to get two that were closer in diameter, but afterwards I realized that it could have been solved by getting a smaller diameter pot instead and that might have been even easier.  I found the best plastic pots for this project at Dollar Tree because they ended up being very forgiving on the column diameter and had a larger rounded lip that looked better on the column than the one in the mock up in my opinion.  Also, the least expensive HD pot in the size and configuration that we needed was about $2.50 and the ones at Dollar Tree were obviously only a dollar!
 
These were a great addition to our 'Plantation Party' but could be put to use for lots of other things as well, so I'm really happy that they worked out!

11 comments:

  1. Well those turned out great, and you can't beat the price!

    I'm visiting today from Thursday's Favorite Things and I was your 100th follower, woot! :)

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  2. What a great idea! Thank you for sharing at our Pinteresting Party!

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  3. Now that is using your head!!! This is ever so cool and I'm definitely going to be giving this a try. Love it!
    Thanks so much for linking with us, now we're following you!
    Hugs,
    Patti

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    1. Oh yay! They really worked well and they're reusable - total bonus! Thanks for following - hope you enjoy all the fun!

      Cheers!

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  4. WOW! I love hanging out with people like you! I keep hoping some of that cool creativity will wear off on me one day! I loved this idea and your blog! Thanks so much for linking up with us at One Sharendipity Place this weekend! Will pin it and start following you! :)

    Sue @ thet2women.com

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  5. Great idea! Thank you for joining Home Sweet Home!
    Sherry

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  6. I am going to have to remember this for our VBS! Great idea! Thanks for sharing. Blessings, D@TheShadyPorch

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    1. These would make awesome VBS props!! That's a great idea!

      Cheers!
      Jen

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  7. Just popped in to let you know that your post is featured this week at Ivy and Elephants. Please feel free to stop by and grab a featured button. Thanks for linking.
    Hugs,
    Patti

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    1. Thank you so much for the feature Patti! That means a lot to me! So glad you stopped by!

      Have a great weekend - Jen

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  8. This is really timely. We are working on decorating our church in a Rome theme for our Vacation Bible School on Paul and the early church! I pinned it here: http://pinterest.com/pin/259097784785053719/

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