Design Team Flower Challenge

For our Design Team challenge, we were asked to make a 3 dimensional flower.  Easy enough, right?  I’ve only been making 3d flowers for a little while.  Infact, before Christmas, I made my first dimensional flower, a poinsettia.  I wanted to try something new…I wanted to make a Tim Holtz® grunge style rose…but I wanted it very grungy with a touch of vintage…almost gothic.  I had the image in my head….a deep rich red, with black embossing and distressing, several rough layers….the perfect job for my favorite flower die…Spellbinders®Rose Creations by Donna Salazar.  One small catch…there always is…I wanted to use a media other than paper….so, I decided to whip up some fused plastic.  Here is my recipe and instructions....enjoy:
Ingredients

Red Fused Plastic

Black Glitter Cardstock (solid core)

Spellbinders Rose Creations Die

Tim Holtz script stamp

Black embossing powder

Cranberry Embossing Powder

Glossy Accents

Perfect Pearls Powder in Pewter

Tsukineko Walnut Ink in Java

Hot glue gun

Heat gun

 

Seeing as how I’ve never fused plastic before, I knew this would be a breeze, LOL  I did have a stash of plastic grocery bags….I looked up a tutorial to find out what I didn’t know…exact settings, how to add color, etc.  I have to say, while it contained great details, the overall tutorial was over laborious and almost intimidating.  There are several shortcuts I took along the way, that worked well.  When I say well, cut the time in half…and who of us has enough time to spend twice as long, doing something… I knew that plastic grocery bags would fit the bill.  I had white walmart bags, and they worked really well.  I also knew that using plastic, I would have to add the color to the plastic itself in the fusing process or I would be coloring and distressing all day.   When adding color to fused plastic, there are some key things to know…the color from your materials does not bleed when fused.  I had imagined a blending of colors, and that did not happen.  With this in mind, use your logo’d and printed plastic to the back of your fused plastic.  I needed red…a lot of red….I wasn’t adding a small applique…I was making several cut layers.  I found some red Saran Wrap that I purchased at Christmas.  This is a very thin, very transparent plastic.  I created a fused plastic sheet, using a total of 6 grocery bags, 2 clear deli bread bags and a total of 5 layers of Saran Wrap® on each side. 

Once the plastic was made, I headed to my room to cut my flowers….or so I thought.  Turns out, Spellbinders do not cut fused plastic.  It’s too thick.  This was the downfall of my plan and where I began to think I needed to post this project on Epic Fail vs. a Design Team Board.  (I have since discovered that a Sizzix® die will cut it, the Spellbinders® was just too thin.  If you have the Sizzix® rose or Tim Holtz Tattered Rose® die, it will work perfectly.  The Spellbinders® die DID imprint the shape, so I hand cut them.  Took a little bit of time, but they still turned out good.  A good pair of scissors will cut no problem.  I cut a total of 12 flowers, 2 of each size.  I used 9 of them for my flower. (This is a wonderful die, and well worth the $$.  It is very versatile, and easy to use.)

From there, I used my Tim Holtz® script stamp and embossed each flower with black embossing powder.  During the embossing process, I learned that my heatgun was hot enough to limber the fused plastic, which I took advantage of when shaping the petals.  To shape the petals, I used my heat gun to heat the flower enough to be manipulated, then curled the petals and held them while they cooled.  Fused plastic can be shaped like paper petals, but will relax over time.  Using the heat and cool method will allow the flower to hold its shape, making it a very durable embellishment.  When I shaped the petals, some of the embossing powder flaked off…this actually added to the “grungy” character of the rose. 

Here comes the scary part….putting together the flower.  Why is this scary?  Well, ladies and….probably more ladies, lol….because I have just made fused plastic, hand cut 12 flowers, heat embossed and shaped the petals….and the next step to a perfect grunge rose is…to cut the flowers up.  If you follow the standard tutorial on how to make a Tim Holtz style grunge rose, you will have good results.  This particular flower has less petals than the one in the tutorials, but I still removed the same number for each layer and they worked just fine.  I used hot glue to glue the layers together, and used some of the extra petals that I trimmed to fill in gaps.  Once the flower was assembled, I wanted to add black accents, but I had 2 problems….I don’t have black alcohol ink, and pigment ink won’t adhere to plastic….  I pulled out my box of finishing materials…yes, there is a box of them…and mixed together Glossy Accents®, Tsukineko Walnut Ink® in Java and Perfect Pearls® Powder in Pewter.  I used a small paint brush to apply this solution to the edges of the rose, and used a dry stippling brush to smooth the edges and add in into the petals.  After applying this, I sprayed with Tsukineko Shimmer Mist® in both Copper and Frost.  I used the stippling brush to remove the puddling then applied heat from my heat gun to dry.  I cut leaves from the Spellbinders® die (it comes with 6 flowers and 3 leaves) in black glitter cardstock, embossed them with Cranberry embossing powder, roughed them up a bit, and glued them on the backside.  Now...what do you get when you put it all together......tada.....

I hope that you have enjoyed the process of  my grunge rose.  I will be posted a post detailing how I made fused plastic sometime between now and Thursday, for those of you who are interested in it. 

Please visit our Design Team page at http://purplefuntastickcreations.blogspot.com/ to see the rest of our wonderful projects and visit our Design Team members’ blog pages at:

Senior Design Team:

Lynn Kirsch~ http://slasewcraftiness.blogspot.com/

Kimberly Pate ~ http://scrappingrookie.blogspot.com/

Shawnee Penkacik ~ http://www.blessedonthebrightside.com/

Zenita Smith ~ http://www.scrappinwithz.blogspot.com/

Susan E Bermudez ~ http://susanascorner.blogspot.com/

Tina Keller ~ http://craftyandgreen.blogspot.com/

Carolyn Phillips ~ http://messmuddleandfun.blogspot.com/

Junior Design Team:

Rachelle Larsen ~ http://creationsbyrachelle.blogspot.com/

Lisa Woodward ~ http://mycraftyspaces.blogspot.com/

Andrea Stradley ~ http://astateofgracie.blogspot.com/

Jackie Lodge ~ http://jackrabbitscrappin.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much for stopping by, and don’t forget to come back on Thursday, to see what I do with this beautiful grunge rose!

Lisa Woodward