A Wee Leprechaun Estate

Hello, Lisa Hoel here – our current Funkie Junkie Focus theme is 'Aren't We Lucky?' Since it is March I decided to go all in with a St. Patrick's Day make. You would count yourself lucky indeed if you found a leprechaun's pot of gold!

This little scene has a vintage saucer for its base (in the perfect shade of green). A Halloween Idea-ology Cauldron is a nice stand in for the 'pot of gold'. The leprechaun's wee little house stands under the shadow of four leaf clovers.

I couldn't resist adding one of the new Salvaged Rabbits to the scene…

Let's take a look at some of the how-to!

Step 1 was to make the pot of gold. I crammed a small styrofoam ball into a cauldron and painted it gold. To make the gold coins, I first cut 3/4" circles out of shrink plastic.

I shrank them with my heat gun so they made nice little coin shapes. Tip: flatten the coins with an acrylic stamp block while the plastic is still hot. I then painted each coin with Gilded Foundry Wax. When the wax dried, I heated each coin again with my heat gun to set the wax. It gets so shiny! (I held the coins in place with tweezers so the heat gun didn't blow them away.)

Step 2 was to form the scene base. I cut a circle of foam core to fit into the saucer. Aluminum foil was molded into the shape I wanted for the base and hot glued in place.

Then I covered the foil with plaster cloth strips. After that was dry I painted it various shades of green and covered it with moss.

Step 3 was making the lucky four leaf clovers. I colored white coffee filters with various colors of Distress Spray Stain. I like to use coffee filters because you can dye them any color you like and they look like tissue paper but are much stronger.

Heart shapes make great clover leaves! The handy thing about using the Hearts Stacked Tiles Die Set is that it comes with multiple dies of the same size. I was able to cut out all the shapes I needed in one pass.

Covered floral wire is perfect for the stems.

With a dab of low temp hot glue, I adhered the first leaf. I added each leaf with another dot of glue and compressed the leaf tips around the stem.

I hope you are feeling lucky now…

Thanks for stopping by. Keep an eye on the Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog, Inspiration Ave. because you are now getting regular doses of expanded (and inspiring) content each week. Don't miss it…

Supplies used:

Tim Holtz Thinlits Die Set - Paper Village

Tim Holtz Thinlits Die Set - Stacked Tiles, Hearts
Tim Holtz Thinlits Die Set - Funky Florals #2
Tim Holtz Thinlits Die Set - Funky Florals #3
Tim Holtz Thinlits Die Set - Small Tattered Florals 
Tim Holtz 3D Texture Fades - Mini Lumber
Tim Holtz Idea-ology - Halloween Cauldron
Tim Holtz Idea-ology - Salvaged Rabbits
Tim Holtz Idea-ology - Bouquet
Distress Paint - Lost Shadow
Distress Spray Stains - Vintage Photo, Tea Dye, Cracked Pistachio, Saltwater Taffy, Squeezed Lemonade
Distress Crayon - Walnut Stain
Distress Foundry Wax - Gilded
Distress Kraft Heavystock
Distress Collage Medium Matte

Generic supplies:

Plaster cloth

shrink plastic

coffee filters

moss

floral wire

mini spun cotton mushrooms