Seussical Pill berry Bush - Making Progress!

When we last left our developing Pill Berry Bush, I had just assembled the basic structure and the next step was covering it with the necessary items to make it look like a fleshed out topiary tree.

As I showed in one of the pictures from the last post, I coated 4 long strips of cardboard with Great Stuff to cover the stem.  I stapled these to the trunk with a staple gun, and I covered the ball at the top with with solid green fabric.  I attached the fabric with safety pins and then I sewed it on with an upholstery needle...

I bought WAY too much fabric - I think I bought 8 yards of solid green and 10 yards of tulle.  What was I thinking?  I'm sure we'll be able to use this for something in the future, though, so it won't go to waste.  I only needed about 3 yards of each, maybe less.

After I sewed on solid fabric, I covered it with a fluffy layer of the tulle.  This took a long time, and I hate hand sewing, so I kept putting it off.  Also, I kept wasting lots of time on Ancestry.com and that didn't help either. 

 If you are able to find flat black safety pins, you could maybe attach the fabric that way instead.  I was afraid that safety pins would be visible since they would reflect the light.  Just a thought.  

So as you can see, I still had empty strips down the trunk/stem of the tree, so it was back out to Home Depot to buy another can of Great Stuff.  You might be able to see that the Great Stuff I used for the lumpy "soil" shrunk a LOT after it dried.  I could have sprayed more in there when I finished the trunk but I thought there was a possibility that it would shrink again, so I didn't bother - it's going to get covered with fabric anyway.  

I sprayed the last can of Great Stuff into the empty spots on the trunk.  

I also bought a bunch of packages of ping pong balls from the local Dollar Tree and painted them with bright nail polish so they'd look like berries, then glued them on with the glue gun.  

Keep in mind, glue guns are usually pretty hot, and the glue will run down the sides of the ball towards your fingers.  You might want to hold the ping pong balls with some tongs.  I learned the hard way.

Next, I spray paint the trunk and cover the soil and then I'm DONE!!