Showing posts with label foam paper. Show all posts

Monday, June 8, 2020

Foam Flower Multi Color Light

7:00 AM Gail @Purple Hues and Me craft blog hop, foam flower light, foam paper 21 comments

Disclosure I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites, this post may contain links. I may receive a very small commission at no cost to you! The affiliate money I earn helps pay my crafting expenses. Thanks so much for your support!

Welcome to our monthly challenge blog hop! I've joined a group of creative bloggers to bring you a themed monthly challenge blog hop on the 2nd Monday of each month! For June, it's

Summer Crafts/Projects!

Have I got a fun summer project for you! Perfect for outdoor celebrations, cookouts, and parties! A foam flower multi color light! It's a pretty way to decorate the patio, porch. or outdoor area! Creating a cozy atmosphere by casting lovely soft, calming glows in different colorful hues! You've probably seen huge paper flowers similar to this, as I have, but most don't light up, are attached to electrical lights or use led tea lights. And since I already had a remote control twinkle light set, I wanted to see how cool it would be to create my own smaller version using foam sheets.

Materials

Foam Sheets (thin)
Electric Griddle/Iron
Styrofoam Ball
Bubble Ball 4" Glass Vase (Hobby Lobby)
Scissors/ruler
Hot glue
Remote Control multi-color string lights

Let's begin by cutting templates from cardstock in 3, 3.5 and 4 inch squares. Then, cut out five, 3" squares, five, 3.5" squares and nine, 4" squares from 1mm foam sheets.

Create petals by rounding off three of the corners in each square using scissors to form a petal shape with a pointed end.

Then place each petal on a low heat griddle or iron for a few seconds until the edges curl under . . .

and immediately place on a styrofoam ball . . .

gently stretching the middle and edges over the ball . . .

shaping the petal into a rounded . . .

curve shape.

Repeat for the remaining 3" petals. For the larger 3.5" and 4" petals - when the edges curl under from the heat, turn the petal over before shaping on the styrofoam ball so that the edges are flaring out - like flowers!

Begin shaping the flower by taking the first petal and applying hot glue to the bottom following the v shape.

Turn the bubble vase upside down and lay the top of the petal over the bottom while securing the petal tip to the side. Continue adding petals, overlapping . .

going around the glass until reaching the beginning petal of the first layer.

Start the second layer of petals not quite midway down with the edges flaring out by staggering the first layer and overlapping while gluing each petal on.

Continue adding petals, overlapping and allowing the petals to lean outward.

For the last layer, place and glue petals so that the tips are hanging over the opening, covering any glass that shows . . .

Once done, trim foam even with glass vase opening.

Insert twinkle lights and battery into bottom of flower (vase) . . .

and place in a decorative setting . . .

turning lights on using remote control.

Outdoors during the day - the lights are on but you can barely see them. It's been raining in the evening these past few days so I've been unable to take any pictures at night.

But this is how the flower looks inside in the dark!

Magical, don't you think! How cool is this!

Now onto our blog hop!

and meet our co-hosts:

Across the Blvd | Purple Hues & Me

Southern Sunflowers | Slices of Life

Domestic Deadline | Chas' Crazy Creations

Comfort Spring | Cookies, Coffee, & Crafts

Coastal Bohemian

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Recycle/Upcycle Toilet Paper Into Beads

7:00 AM Gail @Purple Hues and Me foam paper 23 comments

This is a re-post from quite a few years ago, as a result of the pandemic.

Let's get personal and talk toilet paper! Some of you may have a whole lot of toilet paper on hand right now!

This is probably one of the easiest and cheapest crafts ever! I used a sheet of toilet paper, white glue, and water to form jewelry beads. Let dry and then use a nail or drill to make a hole, paint, nail polish and/or use utee to decorate!

Here's how:

Take a sheet of toilet paper (I used Charmin),

and cup it in the palm of your hand, squeeze some white glue in the center and crumble it together.

Wet you fingers with a bit of water and dampen the toilet paper and glue, squashing and swirling it between your palms . . . . around, and around, shaping it into a ball.

Imagine making meat balls . . .

For larger beads, place the ball on another sheet of tp, add glue and dampen the tissue as before, and shape into a ball. Keep adding additional sheets, glue and water for larger balls.

If it gets a bit sticky, add a little water to continue rolling.

Place on parchment paper after reaching desired size bead and let dry overnight or if you'll impatient, use a blow dryer or place in a 250 degree oven for a while, til dry. You'll find it hard, hard, hard after completely drying!

Use a drill or nail to make holes in the beads.

Now here's the fun part . . . decorating the tp beads!

You can color the beads anyway you like, but have you ever heard of nail polish marble dipped beads? This is how I colored mine:

Take a bead and put a skewer through the holes on the beads you made. Using a glass (the nail polish might make holes in a plastic cup) of water, put 4-6 drops of each color of nail polish you like. The polish will float to the top.

Immediately dip the bead skewer into the floating polish and take it out quickly.

The amazing result is a pretty marbled bead.

If you need more coverage, dip the bead again after adding more nail polish drops. If you wait too long to dip, the polish will get filmy and harden while floating on the water. And you don't want this.

After dipping, you can take a skewer and scoop the left over scaly polish out of the water and use the water, again and again. After marbleizing the beads, let them dry completely.

Isn't this another fun way to recycle or upcycle!

Oh, and you can try another decorating method, too, if you want!

To take your tp marbleizing bead to a whole new level of shine, try dunking it in some ultra thick embossing enamel or utee for a glassy or ceramic look! How cool is this!

Just place the bead on a skewer. Then roll it across a clear embossing inkpad to dampen. Quickly roll the bead in utee. When the bead is covered with powder, use a heat gun and roll the bead around so that the utee melts evenly. While the melted utee is still hot, dip the bead back into the dry powder for a second or third coverage coat and melt again using the heating tool, making sure the utee coverage is even.

It doesn't take long for the utee to cool off and look amazing with all the colors flowing together.

String on a simple ribbon or cord and WOW!

Perfect for making a garland of beads!

Each bead is a unique organic looking creation. Kinda wonky, I think!

No two are the same!

What a great way to use up all that toilet paper and costs just pennies to make!

Take a little time to enjoy

and

Happy Crafting!

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Basket Update Foamiran Napkin Decoupage Flower

4:00 AM Gail @Purple Hues and Me Baskets, decoupage flowers, foam paper, Thrift Store Upcycle Challenge 17 comments

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 Cra f ts - 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.