Fabulous New Products At Swedish House Crafts

Hi all, well spring and Easter are due soon and guess what?

Suha has some fabulous new MDF products in store for you to decorate with mixed media, papers or what ever you fancy!! so I've made an Easter/ spring based themed project

I've used a MDF large Egg which I have decorated in a mixed media style, then used some of the fantastic new chip boards which are new in store too,

I added some handmade Foamiran flowers and leaves too,

I have made a small tutorial on how I made the flowers and leaves for you

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Snowdrop type flowers

I made up some snowdrop type flowers out of white 0.6 foamiran and the Lady E Design dies Leaves 002 using the smallest size, for the leaves I used the Flower 002 die die using the smallest leaf die,

Both of these dies are larger then what I finished up with, the way to get them smaller is to pop the cut out flowers one at a time against a fairly hot iron, turn the iron on to the start of the three dots or the cotton setting, place the flower head against the iron with a wooden skewer or something similar as the iron is very hot and you need to hold the flower against it for a few minutes,

Simply hold the skewer against the centre of the flower head then watch the foamiran shrink, keep it held against the iron till you get the size you want, or in this case till it stops shrinking, then carefully lift the skewer away from the iron with the end of the skewer still on the flower head and the flower will curl upwards, let if fall off the iron and shape gently with your fingers,

The leaves are done in a similar way, hold the die cut leaf, (this one has three leaves on the one die) against the hot iron with the skewer, again watch it shrink, when shrunk as much as it will, carefully take away the skewer, the shrunk leaf will fall off the iron or if not remove it very carefully again with the skewer, at this stage you can scrunch the leaves between your fingers if you wish,

Take a piece of floral wire, bend over one end with a pair of pliers or a jewellery  tool, to form a close loop, make a hole in the middle of your shrunken shaped flower and thread the wire through, looped end last, then  glue the flower head to the start of the loop,

Take your shrunken leaves and wrap them around the wire at the bottom so they have the look of mine above, 

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Daffodil Type flowers

Taking the Lady E Design dies leaves 002 and using the middle sized one cut out as many as you wish to use out of lemon 0.6 Foamiran, I kept mine simple but you could use a mould for a little texture,

fold the petals of one flower head together, then scrunch between your fingers for a couple of seconds, this makes the foam a little softer and adds a little shape, do the same steps for the other ones too,

I then cut a strip of the same Lemon foamiran roughly 6mm wide then take a pair of fancy edged scissors and cut along the length one one edge, add a little colour on this edge with any medium you use, I used soft pastel on mine but you could us oil pastels etc too,

Wrap the strip around a large pen or something circular and cut the length off, then glue the ends together, I used super glue for this, be careful of your fingers,

Take the made up circle and glue it onto the cut out flowers again using super glue or similar, let set,

Take some stamens and add these to the middle of the flowers,

Ta Da with a little handmade extras you get a Daffodil type flower out of the same die set as you used for the Snowdrops, 

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Now the Egg

I first coated the egg with white Gesso, then when dry I scrunched a piece of tissue paper up, slightly flattened it out and glued it over the  dried Gesso onto the egg, let this dry a little then simply tear off the excess around the edges, making sure the tissue is stuck , press lightly over the top with your fingers if needed,

 I then added the gorgeous chip board background to the top section, this I simply cut down to shape after gluing it on, ( cuts easily with a pair of scissors),I painted mine with Finnabair sparks paints,

I then decided to decorate the base section, which was first painted with white Gesso, I missed out the tissue paper just painting the base with the same sparks paints,

Taking the fence chipboard I added a layer of Gesso but I dabbed it on with a piece of foam, this gives a little texture, the fence had some pots or cups on but I didn't want these on so I simply cut them off before painting it, the cockerel was also attached  but this I left on, 

I then painted these when dry with a few colours of distress inks,

Fix the egg onto the painted base, then add the fence, leave to set,

I Glued some of my Snowdrop type flowers on the other side of the base, then added some feathers from my stash, I also had some mini glittery eggs so I glued this on top of some Sisal to look like eggs on a nest,

I added another Cockerel at the front of the base then added some more flowers and another glittery egg in front of the chip board fence,

Lastly I glued the Daffodils onto the egg on the left hand side to finish it off,

Products used:

Laser owe Love chipboard - Yellow Spring - Rooster on Fence 

MDF - Egg on stand

Laser owe Love chipboard - Lily of the background

0.6 Foamiran - Lemon

0.6 Foamiran - White

0.6 Foamiran Dark Green

Lady E Design dies

Leaves 002

Flower 002

I've loved making this project, if you do one too be sure to share it with us, we'd love to see it,

Happy Crafting!!!