Saturday StepXStep

Welcome to Saturday StepXStep.  Linda Coughlin here to share the steps I used to make this Easter Egg wall hanging/refrigerator magnet for my DT piece at Our Creative Corner this week.  Our challenge theme there is 'In Your Easter Bonnet' and we were to use elements that would be on our Easter bonnet.  Well, mine would definitely have FLOWERS.  Hence I made a little flower patch of my rendition of that floral sign of spring - the crocus.

I always have requests for tutorials when I make a new kind of crinoline flower so today's StepXStep is going to focus mainly on the crinoline flowers.  Crinoline is a stiff cotton fabric used to make fluffy petticoats and hat brims, among other things.  I have been using it for over a year to make all sorts of handmade flowers for my crafts.

I cut 10 crinoline flower shapes using a Spellbinders five petal die.  Any similar die will work.  Using my Dusty Concord DI pad, I smooshed it down two times on my craft sheet and then misted it with a mini mister.  I mixed it around to make a purple die mixture and laid my flowers in it.  I didn't have quite enough so I smooshed and sprayed another puddle.  Once I had all the flowers saturated with the dye mix, I dried them flat on the craft sheet with my heat gun.  Depending on the type of flower I am trying to recreate, sometimes I scrunch them up before drying.  Once dry I folded each flower into quarters.  I then unfolded the base and curled the inner layer.  

Using the smallest flower die I had (a small flower punch would work), I cut out the centers from white card stock and stained them with Mustard Seed Distress stain.  While it was still damp, I scrunched it up, added a blob of Claudine Hellmuth Multi Medium Matte and seated it into the center of the inner flower layer.  Pinching the base into a cone, I added more multi medium to the base and seated that layer into the outer layer of crinoline, pinching the base into a cone.  The multi medium will squish through the layers and form a solid base when dry.

I like to make LARGE refrigerator magnets.  My base here is 8" high.  I used an old Creative Memories cutting pattern to cut the oval.  I wanted to use my Wendy Vecchi gingham stamp, but because my surface was so large, I had to stamp it four times.  I pieced it together in a sort of patchwork pattern, glued it and then ran a zigzag stitch over the joins.  I cut a second oval out of chipboard and layered the two pieces.  The edges were sanded with my Tim Holtz sanding grip to smooth them out and then inked with Antique Linen.  I cut two pieces of chipboard with the On the Edge Doily Die and painted them with Picket Fence Crackle Paint.  When dry, I went over it with Scattered Straw distress stain and also inked the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink.  I cut the fence with the On the Fence die out of plain white card stock, inked the edges lightly with VP DI and embossed with a cool Ranger embossing powder I just discovered called Enamelware.  It's basically clear EP but has small white dots in it like, well like enamel ware.  Then I sponged over the embossing with VP DI again.  

I finished it off by dying some rayon seam binding with Bundled Sage distress stain, scrunching it up and drying it.  To make my three loop floppy bow, I wrap the seam binding around my fingers three times, slide it off, pinch it in the middle and tie a short piece of seam binding around it.  I added a bit of purple burlap twine, a sentiment tag and a pretty button.  Last week I shared how I love to alter the filigree metals with embossing powder.  Here I used Antique Linen distress embossing powder on the butterfly and the filigree piece.  I really love the way it looks on this piece.  I will add a sheet of magnet on the back and stick it to my refrigerator as an Easter decoration.  

I'm sorry some of the photos are a bit blurry.  I must have forgotten to set the camera to macro on a couple of shots.  You can double click the photos and they will open up large so you can see the details, but if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and I will update the post with the answers.  Many of the items I used, including a limited supply of crinoline and that pretty galloon beading venise lace, are available in the Funkie Junkie Boutique.  Don't forget the distress stains are 15% off this week because they were the Friday Focus.  

Thanks for starting your Saturday out with Saturday StepXStep here at Frilly and Funkie!  

Rayon Seam Binding	Crinoline	On the Edge Distressed Doily	Scattered Straw Distress Stain	Picket Fence Distress Crackle Paint
Ranger Bundled Sage Distress Stain	Multi Medium Matte	Idea-ology Wire Pins	Vintage Photo Distress Ink	Ivory Rayon Embroidered Galloon Beading
Tim Holtz Sanding Grip	Burlap String 10 Colors	Filigree Metal	Antiqued Bronze Charms	Paper Crafting Embellishments - Filigree Metals

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