Looking for the Lady From the UK Who Emailed Me About Crinoline

I had an email late this afternoon from a lady asking if I would ship crinoline to the UK.  She asked for 3 of the crinoline/seam binding sets and one package of bead caps from my Funkie's Junk blog.

Yes, I do still have some crinoline available for sale but your email has gone missing from my mailbox so I don't know who you are and can't send you a PayPal invoice.  Please email me again at thefunkiejunkie@gmail.com.

And anyone else who can't find crinoline locally and wants some, I can help a limited number until my supply is exhausted.  See information on the above link.

My Easter Bonnet

My Easter bonnet is brimming over with a profusion of glorious spring flowers.  This week our challenge to you at Simon Says Stamp and Show is to Show Us a Hat.  That's a pretty wide open and fun theme for a challenge.  As usual the team at Simon Says Stamp and Show has offered quite a selection of hat projects for your inspiration.   

My hat is a an Easter bonnet.  I recycled a straw hat that my daughter had years ago, stripping off all the embellishments and creating a riot of spring flowers made with crinoline cut with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die and dyed with reinkers.  For the flower centers, I coated jumbo brads with vintage gold glass glitter and micro beads.  My eggs started life as colored plastic eggs which I primed with Claudine Helmuth's Gesso and then covered with spring inspired fabric using Claudine Helmuth's Multi-Medium Matte.  

Here's a close up of the flowers.  What a joy it was to make them.  It took awhile and I used over a half yard of crinoline.  I'm thrilled with this colorful and vibrant Easter project for my seasonal decorating.  Hope you like it.  And wait until you see the makes from the rest of the team.  It's another week of super inspirational projects.  Check them out at Simon Says Stamp and Show and then show us your hat.  Our generous sponsor, Simon Says Stamp and Show,  is offering another $50 shopping spree to the lucky random winner.  So get in it and maybe win it.

Thanks for stopping by and for your wonderful comments.  Feel free to leave any questions in the comments or email me privately.

A Little Sneak Peek

Woohoo, I just finished a bright and happy Easter home decoration piece for my weekly Simon Says Stamp and Show project.  Not only did I make these fun Easter eggs, but I used up ALL the crinoline I had.  I had to go search out more so if you are in need of some, I have another 5 yards that I can sell.  Click here for the details.  

I had so much fun working with all the lovely spring colors.  Thought I would share a snippet of it.  Stop back by on Monday for the full details.  In the meantime, have a wonderful Sunday!

A Shabby Little ATC

This week at Our Creative Corner, our host Rebecca Ednie is challenging us to make an artist's trading card (ATC).  ATCs are miniature pieces of art measuring  2.5 by 3.5 inches.  Rebecca has given us a color requirement for our ATCs - use kraft plus black or brown, white or cream and one other color.

I must admit, this is only the second ATC I have ever made.  Despite its small size and uncomplicated nature, making this ATC did not come easy to me.  I thought it would be a snap, very quick and easy.  But I hemmed and hawed over it for hours, tweaking this, changing that.  This is what I finally ended up with.  Not sure but what it needs to be tweaked some more, but I flat ran out of time.  So much angst over a few little bits of paper, ribbon and buttons - LOL!

Anyway, this awesome new Button Boutique set by Papertrey Ink and the matching die were absolutely perfect sized to make an ATC.  I started with a kraft base and stamped it with Chocolate Chip ink.  I took a doily and sprayed it with a mixture of water, Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls and just a tiny half drop of Vintage Photo reinker.  I was going for a cream color for the white doily and it actually worked. I found 4 brown buttons and affixed them to the button card with glue dots.  Then dyed my seam binding with Rose Romance reinker.  I've had some polyester twill kicking around my workstation.  I purchased it thinking I could use it like the cotton twill, but didn't like it.  But it worked beautifully to make two tiny ribbon flowers with.  I've also had this teeny tiny clothes pin on my desk which became a perfect embellishment.  I grunged it up a bit with Vintage Photo ink, applied a little German glass glitter in gold and a large pink rhinestone.  The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink Mixed Messages set and the little tag was cut with a spellbinders tag die.  Most of the beads on the stick pin are from the SU Pretties Kit.  That's pretty much all I can tell you about my ATC, but if you have questions, please let me know.

Hope you will be joining in the ATC fun over at Our Creative Corner.  Be sure to stop and see what the rest of our design team has made for this challenge!  Have a great weekend and thanks so much for stopping by.







Challenges Entered:
My Partner in Crafting Crime - Buttons
The Shabby Tea Room - BINGO (buttons, flowers, glimmer/glitter)
TuesdayThrowdown - Anything But a Card
The Pixie Cottage - Sketch and/or Sparkle

Tutorial - More Crinoline Flowers

Yesterday I published an Easter refrigerator magnet (see post below) with some pretty yellow spring-like flowers made from crinoline.  They were easy and fun to make and I think they added a lot to my spring piece.  Here's a quick tutorial on how I created those flowers.  

Materials Needed:

A cutting die for a five or six petal flower (pretty much any brand of die will work)

About a 3x3 inch doubled (two layers) square of crinoline

Non stick kraft mat

Reinker color of choice

Heat tool

For my little forsythia patch, I cut about 20 crinoline flowers.

On my craft mat, I sprayed water with a Mini Mister and then dropped 

4 drops of Barely Banana (SU) reinker.  

Mix up the water and reinkers.  

(I keep a rubber glove at my workstation.  It cuts down on inky fingers.)  

Totally saturate the flowers in your reinker puddle.  

Mush them around, turn them over until they are fully saturated with color.  

Mix up another puddle of water and reinker, in necessary.

Next, fold them in half and then in half again.
Pinch the base to keep them in that formation.

Dry with your heat tool.  Hold them down with some sort of tool so they don't take off. 

A couple of mine got away and shot off across the room - LOL!  

Don't get your heat tool too close or you will burn them.  

As they dried, I sopped up the extra drops of reinker/water mixture 

which added sort of a variegated color to my flowers 

- light in some areas, darker in others.  

Here they are.  All dried out and totally stiff again. 

I used cheese cloth to have something to anchor them too.  

Dipping the base into my pot of Claudine Hellumth Multi-Medium Matte (have I told you how FANTASTIC that stuff is?), I grouped them into bunches of twos and threes and stood them straight up.  They dried like that, quickly and securely.  

I cut tiny leaves out of crinoline with a Spellbinders die, dyed them in the same manner 

and glued them in between the flowers.  

And the best thing is I made them myself (love handmade!) for about 50 cents!  And by custom dying your embellishments, you have everything perfectly color coordinated.  Did you notice that I dyed the shabby seam binding so it matched the flowers perfectly?

If you can't find crinoline at your sewing center, check out my Etsy Shop.  I have it for sale for $4.00 for 1/2 yard/35 inch wide here.  Check out my other crinoline flower tutorial Easy Apple Blossoms.  

Let me know if you have any questions!  Thanks so much for stopping by.

EASTER Refrigerator Magnet

Hello again!  I hope you all had a lovely weekend.  The weather was spectacular here in South Florida.  We're trying to hang on to a breath of cool air while we can!  It's time again for my weekly sharing of the project I made for Simon Says Stamp and Show.  This week the theme is Show Us a Word.

My word is EASTER.  We are currently in Lent, a period of prayer and introspection with emphasis on change.  What are you doing for Lent?  Are you making a sacrifice, giving something up to strengthen your discipline?  I'm afraid that the time is rushing by so fast that I haven't really given Lent much thought.  But making this project gave me a pause to really meditate on Lent and the renewal that is Easter.  How wonderful that the liturgical season parallels spring with it's renewal of flora and fauna!

For my Easter project, I chose to make a seasonal home decor item, a jumbo refrigerator magnet featuring vintage images, tulle, crinoline and lace. It's 6x6", built on a piece of chipboard from a chipboard scrapbook album.  Products used include Claudine Hellmuth Multi Medium Matte, Tim Holtz Tattered Florals Die, Gold Alcohol Ink Mixative, Vintage Photo and Antique Linen Distress Inks.   

Do you like my forsythia?  I loved this charming vintage springtime image with the children and what looks to me like a forsythia bush in the background.  I grew up in upstate New York and remember the glorious yellow extravaganza that the forsythia bushes provided every year.  So I tried to recreate them with some crinoline.  My flowers may not look exactly like forsythia but I think they provide a beautiful splash of springtime color on this piece.  I took some photos as I was making them and will try to put them together into a tutorial later this week.  I am finding that crinoline is such a fun, versatile fabric to work with.  It is so stiff - must have tons of sizing it in.  Even when I fully saturated it with water and color from reinkers, it dried totally stiff again - very cool!  I dyed both the crinoline and the rayon seam binding with Barely Banana reinkers - so fun to play with!

Now hustle on over to Simon Says Stamp and Show to see what my team mates have been up to.  I guarantee you will be awe struck by their talent!  I hope you will meditate on a word and then make up a project for our challenge.  Our ever-generous sponsor will be giving away a $50 shopping spree to a random winner.  

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Hope to see your project this week over at Simon Says Stamp and Show!

Need Crinoline?

I've been using crinoline a lot lately and have had numerous inquiries about where to buy it.  I went in to my local fabric store today and purchased the last few yards they had in stock.  I have it offered for sale on my Funkie Findings page on my sale blog.  If you want some of this fun fabric, just email me at thefunkiejunkie@gmail.com and I will send you a Paypal invoice and get it shipped out to you.

And while you are on my Funkie Findings page, check out the other findings and overstocks I am trying to clear out!  There might be something there at a great price that you can use.

Easy Apple Blossom Tutorial (A Crinoline Flower Tutorial)

There's been a lot of interest in my "apple blossom" flowers that I made recently and I have had a number of inquiries on how they were made.  They are super easy and I decided to do a quick tutorial to share.

Materials Needed:  Small flower dies in two sizes.  I used the Sizzix Flowers and Vines #3 and the Tiim Holtz Tattered Florals.
Crinoline
Tulle
Brad
Jewelry Spacer

Using the Tim Holtz die, I cut two flowers from crinoline and two from tulle using the next-to-smallest flower.  

Using the Sizzix die, I cut two flowers from crinoline and one from tulle using the middle sized flower on the die.

Then I balled up each flower, pinching it firmly so it became crinkled.

Next the flowers were unfurled but not fully flattened out and I inserted the brad and jewelry spacer alternating crinoline and tulle with the top flower being crinoline, then tulle, then the other two small crinoline flowers.  Next a large tulle, then a large crinoline, large tulle and ending with a large crinoline flower.

This is how it will look when you have inserted the brad/jewelry spacer all the way through - sort of flat.

 Then I scrunched all the layers up toward the middle.

And finally, individually smoothed the layers down just a bit until I achieved the look I was going for.

That's it - easy peasy.  You can make two or three in just about 15 minutes.  Let me know if you have any questions.  If you can't find crinoline at your local sewing center, I have some for sale on my Funkie's Junk blog.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Some Stars

Welcome back!  You're just in time to see what I have made for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.  This week we want you to show us some stars.  That's a pretty wide open theme and our design team has quite an array of art to share with you.   It's so much fun every week to see what my talented teamies come up with for these challenges!

When I learned that this week's challenge was stars, a western theme immediately came to mind.  I spent some time tracking down vintage western images and created this collage.  It was a fun, but fussy project because I cut/created a lot of the elements by hand.  I searched around the house for something to use for backing and found a large Goldfish box - the jumbo kind you buy at the warehouse stores - LOL.  I cut it up, stripped off a layer of paper to expose the corrugated layer and went over it with Espresso and Snow Cap Acrylic paints.  I didn't have enough chipboard letters to make the title nor do I have the Tim Holtz Vintage Market letter die which would have been perfect (note to self - buy it!!).  I traced some old chipboard letters and cut them out of cardboard, then glued on the Ten Seconds Studio metal, trimmed around the letters and ran them through my Cuttlebug with the Paisley embossing folder.  Then I dripped on Ginger Alcohol Ink and tilted the letter to spread it around.  Yeah, very fussy stuff but it got me the result I was going for and what the heck, sometimes art takes a lot of time to create, right?

The plaques are more Ten Seconds Studio metal run though the Spellbinders tag die and embossed with the Cuttlebug Organic Flourishes border folder and then more Ginger Alcohol Ink.  I did pretty much the same thing to create the tops for the cowgirl tags, embossing with the Stars CB embossing folder.

I embossed more metal with the Stars folder and trimmed them out individually to create the copper stars.  For the rusted stars, I used Grungeboard and Tim's Rusted Grunge technique (page 45 Compendium of Curiosities).  I had a small piece of bailing twine that I picked up somewhere and saved.  (yes, my friends chuckle and roll their eyes when I say "wait, don't throw that away!")

A little burlap enhanced this panel.  I made the rosette out of burlap too.  Added a couple more of Tim's fabulous rusted grunge stars and a Muse Token.  Of course, I aged all my vintage images with Vintage Photo Distress Ink - can't live without that stuff!

Sorry for such a long post, but it was a marathon project and I wanted to share all the details.  I had a blast making it, even though I did fuss over so many details.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Now hop on over to Simon Says Stamp and Show to see the incredible art work my talented team members have produced.  Hope you will play along with our Show Us Some Stars challenge.  Our ever-generous sponsor, Simon Says Stamp, will be giving a $50 shopping spree to some lucky random winner again this week.  Ya can't win if ya don't play!

Well gang, that wraps up another Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge for me.  Hope you enjoyed my project.  Thanks so much for your wonderful comments and have a blessed week!

Apple Blossom Time

We have a very cool challenge for you this week at Our Creative Corner.  Our host this week is Kristin from LilyBeth Boutique and she is challenging us to incorporate fabric into our projects.  You can use it as an embellishment or as a background.  Stamp it, cut it, fold it, weave it!  Use whatever makes you happy - canvas, cotton, silk, satin, burlap, polyester, tulle.  The only restriction is that ribbon doesn't count as fabric.  We want you to try something new.  Wait until you see the wonderful job our design team did this week with fabric - lots of out-of-the-box thinking this week to inspire your creativity!

I bought these beautiful Farmer's Market tags from Isabella's Sketchbook a few weeks ago and have been itching to use them.  I was studying the image and decided I wanted to try to create apple blossoms out of fabric to go along with the tag.  You know I'm nuts over handmade flowers, especially fabric ones!  I used two dies, of course one was my treasured Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die and cut the second largest flower on that die.  I cut two in tulle and two in crinoline for each flower.  The other die I used was the Sizzix Flower and Vines #3 and I cut two in crinoline with the middle sized flower on that die.  So each flower has six layers.  I used a Certainly Celery brad from SU and a jewelry spacer in the center of each flower.  The leaves were cut from canvas with a Spellbinders die and dyed with Garden Green reinker.

What else did I use?  Humm...lots of tools and supplies but after I was finished, I realized there there is no stamping on this card.  The border is a Martha Stewart punch, the dry embossing is from the Organic Flourishes edge embossing folders from Cuttlebug, the DP is by Raspberry Road, but you won't find it because I changed it up quite a bit with my Photoshop Elements.  I found the sentiment line and used one of my cool fonts to type it on my computer and print it out (I also collect fonts).  And there these is a wisp of shabby seam binding that I left in its original color.  All the edges are very gently ink distressed with Creamy Caramel ink and I threw in a little stitching for interest.

I really love these Farmer's Market tags and can't wait to use more.  I am thinking of trying to do a little series with them so you will definitely be seeing them again in the future!  You should drop by Isabella's Sketchbook.  She has a whole series of hand illustrated collage sheets with floral tags, country roosters, Easter tags, etc.  Her digis are wonderful too!

Stop by Our Creative Corner and check out how the rest of the design team has used fabric on their cards this week.  Hope you will be playing along with us too!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for any comment you care to leave.  Have a great weekend!

Challenges Entered:

Sugar Creek Hollow - Handmade Flowers

My Partner in Crafting Crime - Retro Cool

Creative Cottage - Tag, You're It

Flourishes - The Cut Above the Rest challenge

Delightful Daffodils

We're having a party over at Fairy Fun Fridays!  It's our Fairy Queen Roberta's birthday and it's the one year birthday of Fairy Fun Fridays.  We hope you will make a birthday or party themed card and join in the fun with us.  

I seem to be hooked on daffodils lately.  This is the second time I have used this delightful Daffodils image from The Prairie Fairy in the last two weeks.  A few other challenges caught my eye too as I was looking for inspiration so I shaped this card around them and about a dozen more that are calling for spring or flower themes.  I used the sketch from Mojo Monday.  CRE84FN has a yellow/orange/kraft theme and The Kraft Journal is doing spring fling.  

I used some yellow raffia that I edged with Rusty Hinge distress ink to make it resemble daffodils.  I got inspired and decided to make the main image a daffodil and then took it further and created my own handmade one for the corner.  I blinged it up a bit by adding some Star Dust Stickles dots.  Using a piece of crinoline, I inked it lightly with Rusty Hinge and then stamped a Tim Holtz flourish in Rusty Hinge.  Then I ran it through an SU butterfly die.   The designer papers are from My Mind's Eye and Crate Paper plus I used Kraft and Barely Banana CS.    

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Hope you will pop over to Fairy Fun Fridays to see what the rest of the team has for your inspiration.  

Additional Challenges Entered:
Crafty Cardmakers - Fabric (butterflies are crinoline)
The Pink Elephant - Spring Time
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday - Stitching
Papertake Weekly - Lemon Ziggy
Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes
Pals Paper Arts - Easter/Spring