Monday, June 15, 2009

Sunny Sunflowers

While recently in the Springs, I stopped by one of my favorite places - American Classics Marketplace on Academy! Anyone been there? Oh my, it is booth upon booth upon glorious booth of antiques, primitives, vintage everything and more! This place is HUGE!

Anyway, I have a few favorite booths and one is from a store that is no longer called The Gatherings. They closed their store and opened a few booths in this place. I love their finds! Everything is always expensive, but I'm always inspired to try something myself.

This is one of those projects! On my recent visit, I spotted some burlap sunflowers. They had little beads sewn on for the seeds or maybe french knots. And the petals were made of some kind of painted and maybe starched felt. The stems were just plain wire, nothing fancy there. These beauties were not really displayed in anything, just laying on a table. But, I loved them!

You've likely noticed that I haven't been doing much crafting lately - it is sad, but I don't know when to do it! There is no time!! However, after a couple of months of not doing anything, I set aside an afternoon (during nap/rest time) to make these and I am so glad I did!

To make the above, I spent probably about $1 and used all things I had on hand! If you love them too - here's how to make them!

First, select a container - mine started out looking like this and came from a thrift store for fifty cents. I covered it in scrapbooking paper, removed the lid and tied a bow around it.

Next, you need to paint the canvas so it will be dry by the time you need petals! Remember how we painted the canvas for the candy canes? Same idea here - I used only scraps from the candy canes for this project. Start with yellow - brush on to desired color.

Then, I put some ivory and some dark brown on a lid and used a sponge to sort of grunge this up. There is no perfect here - whatever you like, goes! It IS going to look messy - messy is GOOD! Now, just let that sit there and dry while you move on.

You'll need to decide what size you want your sunflowers to be - I made two sizes. One size was made out of a yogurt container lid and the next size up was my cereal bowl. I made five small ones and four large ones. So, cut out two circles for each flower from burlap. This piece was found at our local dump, however - it is not expensive in the Wal-Mart craft department or local fabric store.

After cutting out all your flowers, get out your pins. Pin the rounds together leaving an opening to stuff. Pin like so:

Go ahead and fill as fluffy as you like and pin closed. Stitch around the edge sealing filling inside! Sew about 1/2 inch from the edge of the fabric.

Draw on the sunflower "seeds" with a brown marker. There is no right or wrong to this - however you like it is great!

Now, your canvas should be dry. Start cutting out petals. I just freehand cut one petal and then used that for a template for the rest. Cut out LOTS of petals!

Get out your hot glue gun and run a bead of hot glue along the stitching working a few inches at a time. Place the straight side of the petals in the glue overlapping or not as desired. More overlapping will require more petals! Repeat all the way around the flower and for each flower.

Head out to your yard and find some sticks! Poke those into the open weaving on the burlap to create stems. Glue in place if desired.

Poke the stems down into floral foam or a piece of styrofoam inside your container. Arrange as desired! Enjoy bringing a bit of summer into your home! I also thought these would make cute summery gift adornments (just leave the sticks off), pins (hot glue a pin on the back and omit the stem) or magnets (glue a magnet on the back and omit the stem)! Lots of fun things could be done with these!

19 comments:

Wendi said...

Very cute and they look easy to make! Thanks for sharing.

Patty Williams said...

Oh, Monica, I love, love ,LOVE these! They are just darling! What a great way to keep flowers on the front porch without worrying about them dying !

Beautiful!

Julie Ball said...

These are adorable! I keep intending to do some crafts this summer, but so far it hasn't happened... I think I need to actually write it on my calendar one day! ;)

angie said...

What a beautiful craft using what you have on hand. How did you manage to get burlap from the dump? I have always been drawn to burlap, for some reason.
Last week I tried your banana bread recipe since I had many ripe bananas in the fruit bowl. It was fabulous; moist but not too sweet. I gave half of each loaf (one had choc chip sprinkled on top) to a friend for her birthday. She said that she does not normally like banana bread, but loved this recipe. Thanks for sharing! It will stay in my recipe file.

Elise said...

Thank you for posting these!! I've been thinking they would be so cute in a galvanized sap bucket{that I just happen to have} with aged American flags in there also for my mantle. I happen to have some burlap, too!!
Elise
I was just thinking you could sew the petals on while you are top stitching the burlap. I will play with it a bit. I am excited to get started!!

Montserrat said...

These flowers are oh. so. very. cute! My daughters will love making these.

LynnMarie said...

What a great idea!! I love sunflowers. You could even use orange and brown for fall sunflowers couldn't you? You are so very talented!!

asnipofgoodness said...

These are too cute Monica, and reminded me of our candy cane craft day together! That seems like a life time ago. I love the sun flowers, so cute!

Beth Niquette said...

Well, how simple, and yet how elegant! I LOVE sunflowers!

Anonymous said...

This is a darling project. Your tutorial was very clear and easy to follow. My littles will love doing these. Blessings
QMM

Clorissa said...

These are so sweet! Thank you for sharing.

Clorissa in Illinois

Michelle said...

I just love those! I'm going to try my hand at making some myself. You have such wonderful (and thrifty!) ideas!

Jennie Shutt said...

These are so cute and looks like lots of fun to make.

Unknown said...

CUTE!

I totally can relate to no crafting time! :-)

Jen said...

Monica....your sunflowers are PRECIOUS!!!

Thank you for passing along the story of our High Tea recently. The results were awesomely of the Lord. I wanted to let you know that my blog address has been migrated over to typepad....so in your Kindred Spirits list, it will now be http://pairofbartletts.typepad.com

I have not finished with all of the asthetics and getting everything where I want it, but it's well on it's way. I have a lot more to share in the upcoming couple of months, so stay tuned!

in the meantime...keep up all of those precious projects! I get so many great ideas from you!!!

Love and hugs
Jen

Anonymous said...

very cute! Looks like a fun project to make.

Katy said...

OK...seriously....those are sooooooooo cute!!!! I LOVE them!!!! :)

Sharon said...

Those are so cute Monica! Thanks for always sharing such creative ideas with us :)

~Sharon

The Runyans said...

love this idea. i forget about your blog. it's on my list that i check, but for some reason, it doesn't update, so you are always at the bottom. . .but. . i do love your blog and i love this idea. i may have to make these soon.

happy wednesday!