Umbrella Wall

I am the worst kind of procrastinator.  I gathered all my supplies and let them sit on the kitchen table for weeks afraid this project would eat up an entire day.  Of course, once I sucked it up and had the four year old handing me the umbrellas, I was done inside of two hours.

Supplies:

• Wire cutters: Before I started I thought that scissors would be enough to take off the tiny wood poles.  Be ye not as dumb as me: it wasn't easy cutting them with the wire cutters.
• Poster putty: Found at JoAnn's. I was mildly peeved when I struck out at Michael's so I went overboard when I did find it.  One package was more than enough for the box of umbrellas I used.
• Drink umbrellas: Found at a local party supply store.  A friend suggested I check liquor stores after I had difficulty locating these online.  The downside to buying these by the gross was the lack of variety in a box.  I ended up with a lot of pink and yellow.

My plan was to cover the entire three foot area from the ceiling down on a hallway wall, but once I got underway I realized that this required more umbrellas and effort than I was willing to put forward.  My plan then shifted to not putting two umbrellas of the same color next to each other.  Logically, I should have snipped all the wooden poles off before getting underway, but these umbrellas would not stay open.  The only way to stop them from closing was to apply the putty to back and stick it to the wall; therefore, each umbrella was prepped immediately before it was applied to the wall.

My laziness worked out in my favor since the tiny people seem to think that this is their Chinese dragon.  A big concern was that the putty would not hold once the summer heat and humidity arrived, but only one umbrella has fallen and it was promptly reattached without even replacing the putty.