Let's Have a Tea Party!

Good morning and welcome back to my Saturday post for Our Creative Corner.  It's time to have another cup of tea.  This must be tea week for me because my card for yesterday's post was a tea pot and today the challenge at Our Creative Corner is Let's Have a Tea Party.  Another fun and girly challenge for you this week.  

I chose a sweet vintage image of little girls having a tea party.  I used my PhotoShop Elements to remove the solid background, leaving only the little girls and the table.  Then I layered it over a vintage postcard and printed it out.  Then 'Celebrate Today' from PaperTrey Ink was stamped on the corner of the post card.  I used French Vanilla and Bashful Blue along with an SU embossing folder. The gingham is from Designer Digitals and I digitally matched the color up to Bashful Blue.  I used a scrap of paper from SU's Springtime Vintage DPS and created the large blue flowers using crinoline, tulle, Bashful Blue reinker and Tim Holtz's Tattered Florals Die (tutorial here).  For the center of the flowers, I was happy to use some silver heart brads I've had forever.  I coated the head with Crystal Effects and dipped the into SU's Baja Breeze glass glitter.  The burlap was cut with a Sizzix die, the flourish with a Boss Kutz die.  The mini ribbon roses in the upper right corner were hand folded using polyester twill.  I'm very pleased with this card.  I think it is just as sweet as can be and I'm so happy with the color - having moved on from purple!

Be sure to stop by Our Creative Corner to see what the rest of he team has made.  We're so pleased that we have a fantastic guest designer Grace Nywening of Th-INK-ing of You,  You'll be amazed and delighted with what she contributed to this challenge.  

Challenges Entered:

Paper Sundaes - Spring Blossoms

My Partner in Crafting Crime - Lots of Layers

Pixie Dust Studio- Lace it Up

The Stamp Man - Embossing

Polly Put the Kettle On

I'm back today to kick off another fortnightly challenge over at Fairy Fun Fridays.  Our challenge to you this time is to make a card inspired by a nursery rhyme.  I had fun reviewing nursery rhymes to find one to inspire my card for the challenge.  I finally settled on Polly Put the Kettle On and if you want to read the whole rhyme and learn its origin, here is a site to do so.   I used the Mojo Monday sketch to get me started.  Don't ask me why I used purple again.  I'm not a big fan of the color, but it does bring to mind spring and Easter and that's the mindset I'm still in. 

The lovely tea pot is a digital image from The Prairie Fairy called, appropriately enough, Tea Time and was colored with Copics.  Built on a base of SU's Lovely Lilac, I used a page of a vintage songbook I picked up recently.  The dotted paper is from Pink Petticoat Little Big Dots digital papers.  A scrap of lace with tiny yellow dots, a doily that I vintaged up, some fabric flowers and the yellow seam binding ribbon I dyed the other day for my tutorial (next post down) are the embellishments that seemed to work.  I made a tiny sentiment tag for a Papertrey Ink sentiment from the Out on a Limb set (no longer available with the sentiment) and used my brand new Viva Decor Pearl Pen.  

That's it!  Nothing too complex here, but if you have questions, ask away.  I'm always happy to share.  And now, stop on over to Fairy Fun Friday and see what nursery rhymes inspired the rest of the team.  

As always, my deep gratitude for reading my blog and for the lovely comments!

Challenges Entered:
Mojo Monday - Sketch and monthly contest
My Partner in Crafting Crime - Lots of Layers
The Shabby Tea Room - Spring Colors/Photo Inspiration
CCEE Stampers - Use a Doily Die Cut or Lace
Pixie Dust Studio - Lace it Up

Tutorial - Hand Dying Rayon Seam Binding

Do you want to make shabby, crinkly seam binding ribbon that looks like mine?  I'm sharing my method of how I hand dye it.

Recently I have sold rayon seam binding to a number of crafters.  I've had a few inquiries about dying and crinkling it and was asked to do a tutorial on it.  When I first started using this product, I purchased it in a variety of colors already died and crinkled.  But I found that I never seemed to have the right shade and the ones that I did have, I hoarded because I love it so much.  Then I purchased some white non-crinkled seam binding and started to custom dye it to match my project.  I love being able to do that.  Any color of ink I am working with can be carried over to the seam binding.  Here's the process I follow.

Select an ink color to use for dying the seam binding.  You can use a pad or a reinker.

Smoosh your ink pad upside down on your craft sheet several times 

to leave ink on the craft sheet.  

An alternative is to drop several drops of reinker on the craft sheet.

Add water - I mist the sheet with a Mini Mister filled with water. 

 If you don't have a mister, just drip some water on to your craft sheet.

Mix the water and ink together to make puddles of dye.  

You may want to wear rubber gloves for the next several steps.

Add a length of seam binding.

Roll and smush the seam binding around in the dye puddles,
mixing more dye and water if needed.  

You can give it as much dye or as little as you want.  

Some people like to deliberately leave white or lighter spots for a variation.

Scrunch it up real tight.

Lay it back down on your craft sheet and blow with your heat tool - just not too close.  

You don't want to melt/burn it.

Toss it around to dry it, stopping to scrunch it up periodically as it dries.  Your heat tool will relax some of the crinkles out.  Depending on how scrunched you like it, you may want to scrunch it up really tight several times during the drying process.

And you're done.  It's ready to add to your current project and it only took a few minutes.  If you don't like the way it came out, wet it and dry it again, or add more dye for different effects.

This seam binding ribbon has become one of my most favored embellishments.  It's shabbiness just makes my heart happy!  If you need crinoline or 5 yard increments of plain rayon seam binding, I have it available here in the Funkie Junkie Boutique.  

Hope this tutorial was helpful to you.  Please feel free to ask ask any questions you may have!

Not a Card..Not a Book...Must be a Collage!

I have another fun project to share with you this week for the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.  This week we are challenging you to join us with a project that is Anything But a Card.   Doesn't that sound wide open and FUN?  I have to thank my new team mate Sarah Engels-Greer for the inspiration of using a book cover as a foundation for building a collage.  I am always on the lookout for possible canvases for my collages (remember the giant Goldfish box from a few weeks back?).  I was totally intrigued when I saw Sarah's lovely art that she frequently builds on book covers.  When we were presented with the Anything But a Card challenge, I started casting around for ideas and decided to make a sweep on our one and only antique/junk shop here in the south Miami area.  I was delighted to get this very cool book for $3.  It was published in the early 1950's and is about the sea with lots of vintage style maps and pictures of sailing ships.  I think I will be able to make lots of fun art out of many of its pages.  I had planned to completely cover it entirely, but it was so wonderfully worn and frayed in places that I couldn't bear to cover it up.  Hence, you have my entire collage on the naked book cover.  

Enough rambling about the book cover.  You probably wanted to find out about my project, right?  I'm still in a spring - renewal - Easter mode so that is the theme of this piece.  A few weeks back, French Kissed had a lovely vintage chick image as a freebie.  I fell in love with it and knew I wanted to do something with it - it became the starting point of this piece.  I printed it on my home printer on tissue paper and ink distressed it with Vintage Photo.  Then I created a vintage post card with a couple of Tim Holtz stamp sets - Mini Classics and Mini Holidays.  I made the chipboard letters bright gold and sparkly because I wanted the NEW to be very prominent.  With the bottle cap I added Life and cozied up a gold Cross next to it.  I wanted to convey a new life in Christ.  Continuing on, I created a branch of one of my favorite springtime flowers - forsythia.  I used crinoline again to create the forsythia buds and leaves and glued them to a small branch from the oak tree in my front yard.  Moving on down, notice the sweet vintage eggshell that the chick has left behind?  It's a real one.  I cracked an egg, washed out the shell and dried it with my heat gun.  Then I went to work with the Claudine Hellmuth Multi Medium Matte and that vintage shopping bag that I upcycled for my last blog piece.  Using small squares that I cut with my pinking sheers, I covered the outside of the egg shell.  I shot my homemade Vintage Photo glimmer mist inside the shell.  Directly to the right, you will see a crinoline piece that I made in the style of Tim Holtz's rosette.  I recently saw one made of crinoline on Tammy Tutterow's blog.  I sprayed with with my Vintage Photo glimmer mist and topped it off with a yellow crinoline/tulle flower.  All my crinoline flowers for this piece were made with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die.  Last but not least, I used a Journaling Ticket and typed this quote buy Maria Robinson "Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

I'm anxious to see that you all think of this piece.  I had such fun making it, but don't know if it is any good in the mixed media field.  If you have any feedback for me, let it fly.  Constructive criticism helps us make better art.  

Now to the important stuff.  Be sure to stop on over at Simon Says Stamp and Show to see the amazing art my team mates make.  This week, it's no different - incredible projects from everyone!  And don't forget, our ever generous sponsor, Simon Says Stamp, will be giving a $50 shopping spree to the lucky winner of their random draw this week.  That should be reason enough to make anything but a card and have some fun with us!

Thanks ever so much for stopping by today and for whatever comment you care to leave on this project. 

Vintage Charm

It's rolled around to another Saturday and I'm back with my sample for the Our Creative Corner.  Our hostess this week is Sharon Wheet and she wants us to reflect Girl Power! on our projects this week.  That's right - make it girly. This challenge requires the inclusion of three types of embellishments:  1) a handmade paper flower, 2) ribbon and 3) bling.  Get going - the more girly you can make your project, the more we'll love it!

I started my card with Very Vanilla and Mauve Mist and added a distressed layer of Springtime Vintage DSP.  The vintage newsprint came from a shopping bag that I upcycled.  I added a cream colored vintage doily and a ribbon of ripped cotton fabric.  The image is  from Garden Collage - an old SU set - and I added a bit of color with SU markers.  The blessings stamp is PTI and the glass glitter and pretty rose cabochons are from SU too.  

Hope you will join in our Girl Power challenge this week at Our Creative Corner.  Be sure to stop by to see what the rest of the team has to get your mojo started this Saturday morning!

I'm so glad you stopped by.  Hope you have a great weekend!

NOTE:  Just a quick update, a reader asked what I used to adhere the glass glitter.  It was Stampin' Up Crystal Effects, which is pretty much the same as Ranger Glossy Accents.  It works great.  It's the same process as I used last week to adhere the glass glitter and the micro beads to the brads I used for the crinoline flower centers.

Challenges Entered:
The Kraft Journal - Flowers
Order of the Opus Gluei - Fabric
Tuesday Throwdown - Florals
Little Red Wagon - Fabric
The Pixie Cottage - Stitching
Paper Romance - Bling
If The Shoe Fits - Sew Crazy
Stamp, Scrap and Doodle - Glitz

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!