Anthropologie Trinket and Treasure Knock-offs

I was going to start this post by saying that I’m as Anthropologie-obssessed as the next girl.

In fact, I know I’m not.

But then, my next thought is not:

Nope.

Is there any way I can possibly knock this off for about 1,000% less?

Perhaps it was the touches of whimsy, the contrasting textures and shapes, the bright colors…

Until I got to the price.

REALLY, Anthro?

The nerve.

It’s a sickness, really.

It takes some effort, though.

…and discovered when he started disintegrating, that my creepy-eyed owl was made of some sort of weird, grainy substance, rather than ceramic like I’d thought (one of my readers later told it was alabaster; good to know).

My biggest conundrum were those metallic “spacers (for lack of a better term) in the Anthro versions.

I racked my brain (and my husband’s…poor man) but never came up with anything affordable that would serve as a comparable substitute.

Until…I remembered these wooden napkin rings (8 for $1, by the way) that I used to hold our “napkins” for our special Christmas breakfast.

No.

So, I bought some craft paint…

…did a bit of custom-mixing…

I did a fair amount of fiddling and consulting with the hubs until I found a configuration I liked, and then I started gluing. And gluing. And gluing.

And then, it was time for dinner, so Shaun glued and glued and glued, and I cooked.

(All this gluing produced zero burns, amazingly enough, and only one broken owl).

**You need to make sure that you’re using a high-heat glue gun (with the setting on high…duh). Also, we learned the hard way that you really do need to rough up your smoother surfaces (like the glass and ceramics) with a little sandpaper before gluing or else it won’t adhere as well as you’d like…hence the broken owl…poor Frederico).

Woooohooo!

Um, yes.

So, let’s just take a gander at the price difference, shall we?

So, doing the math—since 3 from Anthro would cost $1,292.50 with tax, and mine were a whopping $15…I saved myself $1,277.50 (that I was never going to spend, anyway, but that’s hardly the point).

Wanna hear the kicker?

Makes me wonder what I could get for mine.

If you liked this project (and made it all the way through my smart-mouthed narration), I’d love it if you’d stop by Five days…5 ways, my humble blogging abode, and check out the other hijinks we get up to!

Hope to see you soon!