Showing posts with label seaside colors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seaside colors. Show all posts

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Plaster dipped silk flowers...


Have you seen plaster dipped silk flowers?

I saw them last fall and was enchanted. 

 I wanted to try it for myself.

Sometimes, the crafting gods deliver what I need right to my doorstep (almost).

Last winter, a small silk flower arrangement blew into our yard on a windy day.

There were red, white and blue silk roses stuck in a piece of styrofoam.  

The flowers were all faded and my husband was going to throw it away.

I saved it just for this project.


I mixed plaster with some water to make a little thinnner than pancake batter consistency.

Then I dipped each rose into the mixture and pushed it down several times to coat all the petals.

I hung them on this card display.

The newspapers below are very important.


The red and blue roses required more than one dipping to cover the flower as much as I wanted it to.


These were the white roses and I only dipped them once.  I liked the finer, more delicate look only one coating created.


They have the look of porcelain.


The blue and red ones were dipped twice and have a chunkier look to them.

You can also see where they were touching the hook below on my rack as it left a mark when the flowers were removed.


I wanted to make a coastal arrangement to say good bye to summer.

First I spray painted this hammered aluminum two-tiered stand.

Then I added my plaster flowers and some coastal touches.


I started with some spanish moss to fill the trays.


Then I added starfish, seashells and pearls.


I gathered another handful of smaller shells and went back to fill in some bare spots and cover  any chips in the plaster.


I also added some of the plaster-dipped leaves.


It is a fun coastal arrangement.


Right now it is on my front porch next to the door.


For these photos, it is on my workbench on the back porch.


I think something like this would be so fun to do for a coastal wedding.


Some sisal rope would be a great addition as well.


I really enjoyed this process.


It was fun and easy to do.


They are pretty fragile so it not something you want to do for things that will be banged around or handled a lot.


Once I am done with them in this arrangement, I may do a fall version with leaves and a Christmas version with either poinsettias or evergreen branches.


I removed my roses from the stems, but you could make an arrangement in a vase too.


The plaster hardens in the cup relatively quickly but it was hot and humid when I did mine, so they took a minimum of overnight to dry.



Thanks for stopping by....

                  Linking up with these great blogs.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

A Raggy Rug from Old Sheets... A DIY Tutorial

I showed you in an earlier post how my daughter dyes some old sheets from the thrift store to use for a rug.



After she dyed all the sheets, she ripped them in strips.



Each strip was about an inch wide and the length of the fabric.

She removed all those loose strings.

And she cut the strips to about 6 inches long.



She cut a piece of non-slip rug mat to the size she wanted.



Hers is quite small.

About 18 inches by 24 inches.

Then she just started looping the fabric pieces through the non-slip rug mat. 

Some tutorials she had seen had merely slid the strip in and centered it.

She wanted hers to be strong so she tied each one.

Yup!

Each One.


She worked on it for about a week while watching TV.

About 1-4 hours a day.


I adore her colors...

And they actually match another rug we bought her before so they will go together.


She did every square in a row and then skipped a row between.  

She also left two rows around the edge to keep it from curling.


The back is pretty too.


Viola!

Finished!


She was very pleased wit it.

She should be.

It is awesome.


I already had the RIT Dye since I am on the Rit Dyesigner Team.

Check out my board here.

But if I had purchased it, I would have spent less than $15 on dye.


The sheets were $3 total.

I have seen other raggy rugs where this is where they really racked up the cost.

You could use fabric you already have or use old sheets like we did.  

Our thrift store sells stained sheets as drop cloths for 50 cents to $1 each,

Since we were dying them, a couple stains did not show.


And we had the non-slip rug mat already.

Sizes vary but buying one big enough for your rug will run $7-10.

So you could do this for about $30.

Ours cost $3.

My daughter entered it in the fair.

When I went to enter it, the little girl that was carrying things back to the judging tables, held it up to her face and rubbed her cheek against it.

A good sign...


Thanks for stopping by...

We will be linking up with these great blogs.

Wile RIT Dye did provide me with the dye for this project, all opinions are my own.