Basket Update Foamiran Napkin Decoupage Flower

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It's that time again for The Thrift Store Upcycle Challenge on the fourth   Thursday of each month! Here, a group of creative bloggers come together to   share their lovely transformations of a thrift store item. Who doesn't love thrift   store upcycle projects - whether it's actually creating one or admiring how an   item from a thrift store was transformed!

The Rules:

• Upcycle an item(s) from a thrift store, resale store, or garage sale into a new piece of decor.
• There's no monthly theme.
• There's no budget to stick to.

                                                                            Meet the Hosts

Angela | Simply Beautiful By Angela - Gail | Purple Hues and Me 

Jenny | Cookies Coffee and Crafts - Michelle | Our Crafty Mom 

 Meredith | Thriftwood Home

  

   

One thing for sure, you can always find lots of baskets at the thrift store. They're usually plentiful in all sizes and styles for just a few dollars. And the best part, baskets are easy to transform with a little bit of paint and a few other enhancements! 

Take this worn out basket that I found at the thrift store. At the time, I had no idea what I would do with it - but it was sturdy, a good size, and looked unique!  I soon realized that it was perfect for our thrift store challenge!

First, after actually washing the basket - it seemed quite dirty in places - and letting it dry, I painted the green twisted twine, a Mulberry shade acrylic by DecoArt. Once the color dried, the basket still looked rather plain. So I decided to decoupage the basket wicker sides with flower napkins. I had decoupage a basket before and didn't have any problems then.

 Begin by separating the printed napkin sheet from the rest and then tearing out some of the flower designs.  

Then lay out the napkin design on the basket and lightly tap the napkin with a mod podge coated brush. Continue adding napkins to the basket using this technique.

 This is what the basket looked like after filling the sides in with the napkin designs.  I did not like the look - there were too many wrinkles! Perhaps the woven wicker was spaced too far apart and allowed the napkin to wrinkle in between - so I quickly washed it all off before it dried.

Then I thought about just making a flower to place on the basket. But I wanted to use the pretty flower napkins I had and wasn't quite sure how I could make a sturdy flower using a napkin. I knew how to make mod podge paper napkin flowers.  But I wanted something firm, strong and with dimension.  Then I had an idea of using foam sheets or formiran! I had made lots of foam sheet flowers, but never attached napkins (decoupage) to the foam sheets. Would that work? I looked on Pinterest and then google how to decoupage napkins to foam sheets but found nothing. 

So I decided to give it a try. There's never harm in trying something new! First, I painted mod podge on the foam sheet.

 And starting at the edge of the napkin, laid it down on top of the foam sheet.

 Once the napkin was down on top of the foam sheet, I used a plastic bag to smooth out the wrinkles and then let dry.

 It took several hours for everything to dry. And while it was drying, I made a template of a flower petal in different sizes. Once the napkin and foam was dry, I drew copies of the petals on the back of the foam and cut them out.

 Next, I placed the petals on a low heat electric griddle (or iron if you don't have a griddle) for a few seconds, letting the edges curl. 

 You'll know the foam is ready when the edges curl and it's time to remove it from the heat by quickly picking it up and using the tips of your of your fingers to shape the petals - by indenting and curling the edges over or even twisting!

Then glue the petal layers together at the center using hot glue.

 For the center, pour a generous amount of mod podge into the middle of petals and drop seed beads down into the glue. Mash the beads down into the MP and let dry.

This flower is too cute! Nice and firm and quite unusual - perfect to attach to the basket!

Use a permanent glue like DAP RapidFuse or super glue to attach the flower to center of basket.

And now for more thrifty goodness!

Check out what my fellow upcyclers created below!

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