Home Decor Projects: Accessorized Antlers

Antlers. Either you like ’em or not. I’m kinda sorta in the ‘like em’ camp. (But totally cool if you’re not on board… I get it.) Last fall there was a vendor at the flea market selling a bunch of antlers for cheap. I’m not a fan of them as is, but I had a foggy recollection of some fun antlers that were wrapped in colorful yarn or gilded or otherwise adorned. So I traded a $10 bill for one of his horns. And then I made it all purty.

No reason you couldn’t just cut a piece of wood as your base, but I found this plaque at Michael’s and thought it looked a little more interesting. I started by taping off the ends of my antlers with painters tape.

If you don’t know about gold leafing… you should! It’s surprisingly easy and gives a perfect golden finish that no paint can achieve. See my full tutorial here, but the gist is that you paint on a liquid adhesive. Let it ‘dry’. Then place the gold leaf onto your glue and… golden goodness. I used this gold leaf and this adhesive (affiliates).

For the base, I grabbed some of my scrap yarn/ twine and some plain’ ol craft glue and slowly wound it around the front. (Bonus that you’ll get to peel lots of glue off your fingertips thanks to this project!)

I primed the edge of the wooden plaque to give the adhesive something to stick to, then I gold leafed it. The yarn looked so fun on the plaque that I decided to bring it onto the base of the horns as well. I used a hot glue gun on this portion because I needed the quick set of a glue gun.

Lastly, the horns had a hole already on them, so they were easy peasy to screw right onto the plaque, but I suspect you could drill your own hole for mounting if need be! Two small eye hooks and some twine and we’re ready for hanging.

There you have it! You may not be into horns, but no question these guys are MUCH more fun with a few ‘accessories’, right?!

This isn’t my first wrapping rodeo… I’ve wrapped a couple of lamps too!

My favorite is this ombre wrapped lamp.

But this jute number’s a fun makeover too!