Crinoline Chrysanthemum Tutorial

Hello,  I'm back with you today to share how to make this lovely fall chrysanthemum out of crinoline. 

Supplies Needed:

A piece of crinoline 3 inches x 35 inches or thereabouts (look for crinoline at your local sewing center.  If you can't find it, I have a limited amount in my Etsy shop)

Tim Holtz Tattered Florals Die

Cuttlebug Dandelion die

Dye (I used a couple of drops of SU Really Rust with a dash of Chocolate Chip to darken it a bit)

Glue (I use Beacon Fabri-Tac)

Something to hold it together  - a brad, a jewelry headpin (or you can glue it and put a decoration in the center such as a button or large rhinestone) 

#1 Cut the Crinoline

You will need 5 crinoline flowers cut with the next-to-largest flower on the Tattered Florals die and 5 cut from the Cuttlebug Dandelion die.  If you don't have these dies, substitute something similar (dies with long pointy petals will work best for this flower).

2.  Dye your cut crinoline - follow dying/drying Steps 2, 3 & 4 in the sunflower tutorial.

3.  Crumple each flower into a tight ball and then carefully unfurl them.  A petal may pull off here and there but that should not be a problem.  An occasional missing petal won't be noticed (arrows show where a couple of petals pulled off mine).  

3. Using a jewelry headpin or a brad, start adding your flower layers from the top down.  If you are using a button or a glue-on decoration for the center, it is easier to build from the bottom up as I showed in the sunflower tutorial.  When building on a head pin, I add all five of the smaller flower layers first and then separate while still on the headpin and add a bead of glue every other layer.

4.  Once you have all five layers added and the glue applied, push them up so all the layers are tightly compressed and using both hands, pinch the base of the flowers.  You may feel some glue oozing out as you pinch.  That's okay.  You should end up with a compact base while the upper petals are in tight bud.

5.  Now add all five of the larger flower layers and repeat the gluing process with a small bead of glue every other layer. 

6.  Push the remaining 5 layers all the way up so they are tightly compressed with the upper layers.  

If using a head pin, bend it to a 45 degree angle and add a drop of glue so the flower layers can't wiggle off.

I glue a small circle as a cover over the head pin and when dry, using a wire cutter, clip off the excess.

7.  All done - enjoy using your pretty fall flower on your fall crafting items.  A word of caution about using it for apparel, the stamping re-inkers are not color fast.  If you want to use it for apparel, I would advise using a color fast fabric dye and maybe sewing the layers together, although Beacon Fabri-Tac is made for gluing fabric.  

I hope you found this tutorial helpful.  If you have any questions, please post them in the comments section and I will respond to them at the bottom of this post so everyone benefits from the information.  

Crinoline Sunflower Tutorial

If you are a regular visitor here, you know I'm crazy about making flowers out of crinoline. I already have two tutorials on making crinoline flowers (here and here), but have had many requests for the three fall flowers I have made recently. This first tutorial is for making this sunflower.   Soon to be published tutorials will be on marigolds and on chrysanthemums.  You can enlarge the photos to see the details by clicking once and make them larger by clicking a second time.


If you can't find crinoline at your local fabric center, I have a limited supply available in my Etsy boutique here.

You will need:
Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die
Tim Holtz Tattered Leaves die
Yellow dye or reinkers
Green dye or reinkers
Something brown for the center - I like a button and brown burlap string
A 20 inch by 4 inch piece of crinoline
A small square of canvas for the leaves
Rubber gloves

Let's get started:

1.  Cut 5 flowers from the crinoline using the second largest flower on the Tattered Florals die.

2.  Mix your dye solution.  If I am making just one or two flowers, I mix my dye solution on my craft sheet.  If I'm doing a batch, I use a shallow bowl.  Here I have misted my craft sheet with water and dropped 3 drops of yellow reinker.  (all of the smaller brown marks are stains on my sheet - please disregard :).

Mix the water and the dye.  Wearing a rubber glove, I mix it with my hand.

Add more water or more reinker to achieve the strength of color you desire.  I often mix colors to achieve the shade of color I want.

3. Saturate your crinoline flowers in the dye solution.  Here you can see I didn't have enough dye solution so I quickly misted more water and added a couple more drops of reinker to fully saturate and color the crinoline.

4.  Let your flowers dry.  They will dry in a couple of hours.  Alternately you can dry them with your heat tool but don't get it too close or you will scorch the crinoline.





5.  Once dry, the crinoline will be nice and crisp again.  To give your flowers body, crinkle them up into a ball and then GENTLY unfurl them again.  This particular flower on my Tattered Florals die has a weak petal at the base and it frequently rips/falls off, especially during this step.  No worries, one missing petal will not be missed on the finished flower.


6.  Because this flower doesn't have a brad or pin, I glue the layers together from the bottom up.  (The arrow is pointing to where one of the petals fell off this flower).  The glue I use is Fabri-Tac by Beacon Adhesives.  Buy it at Jo-Ann's with your 40% off coupon!  It is also the glue I use for making my cards - no warping like water-based glue does.

7.  Continue gluing layers until all 5 are stacked and glued.

8.  Add whatever center piece you wish

9.  I used the Tattered Leaves die to cut leaves out of canvas and dyed them with a green reinker.  They ravel a bit, but I like the shabby look.  I glue two leaves together in a cluster and then glue the sunflower on top. 

All finished - a beautiful crinoline sunflower ready to embellish a special project.  Warning:  If using as a clothing embellishment, please be aware that stamping inks are not color safe.

I hope you found this tutorial to be helpful. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section here.  I will update the post with the requested information/clarification so all will be informed.

Thanks so much for stopping by and for any comments you care to leave.

Post Updates:
Reader's Question - what reinker did I use?  Here I used Stampin' Up's Daffodil Delight.  Sometimes I add a hint of So Saffron or a really tiny bit of Pumpkin Pie to mellow it out a bit.
Reader's Question - where can I buy crinoline?  Try your local sewing center.  If they don't have it, I do sell it in my Etsy shop here.  You can also try buckram, which might be more readily available.  It is heavier and stiffer than crinoline and generally about twice as expensive.  

Tutorial - More Crinoline Flowers

Yesterday I published an Easter refrigerator magnet (see post below) with some pretty yellow spring-like flowers made from crinoline.  They were easy and fun to make and I think they added a lot to my spring piece.  Here's a quick tutorial on how I created those flowers.  

Materials Needed:

A cutting die for a five or six petal flower (pretty much any brand of die will work)

About a 3x3 inch doubled (two layers) square of crinoline

Non stick kraft mat

Reinker color of choice

Heat tool

For my little forsythia patch, I cut about 20 crinoline flowers.

On my craft mat, I sprayed water with a Mini Mister and then dropped 

4 drops of Barely Banana (SU) reinker.  

Mix up the water and reinkers.  

(I keep a rubber glove at my workstation.  It cuts down on inky fingers.)  

Totally saturate the flowers in your reinker puddle.  

Mush them around, turn them over until they are fully saturated with color.  

Mix up another puddle of water and reinker, in necessary.

Next, fold them in half and then in half again.
Pinch the base to keep them in that formation.

Dry with your heat tool.  Hold them down with some sort of tool so they don't take off. 

A couple of mine got away and shot off across the room - LOL!  

Don't get your heat tool too close or you will burn them.  

As they dried, I sopped up the extra drops of reinker/water mixture 

which added sort of a variegated color to my flowers 

- light in some areas, darker in others.  

Here they are.  All dried out and totally stiff again. 

I used cheese cloth to have something to anchor them too.  

Dipping the base into my pot of Claudine Hellumth Multi-Medium Matte (have I told you how FANTASTIC that stuff is?), I grouped them into bunches of twos and threes and stood them straight up.  They dried like that, quickly and securely.  

I cut tiny leaves out of crinoline with a Spellbinders die, dyed them in the same manner 

and glued them in between the flowers.  

And the best thing is I made them myself (love handmade!) for about 50 cents!  And by custom dying your embellishments, you have everything perfectly color coordinated.  Did you notice that I dyed the shabby seam binding so it matched the flowers perfectly?

If you can't find crinoline at your sewing center, check out my Etsy Shop.  I have it for sale for $4.00 for 1/2 yard/35 inch wide here.  Check out my other crinoline flower tutorial Easy Apple Blossoms.  

Let me know if you have any questions!  Thanks so much for stopping by.

Easy Apple Blossom Tutorial (A Crinoline Flower Tutorial)

There's been a lot of interest in my "apple blossom" flowers that I made recently and I have had a number of inquiries on how they were made.  They are super easy and I decided to do a quick tutorial to share.

Materials Needed:  Small flower dies in two sizes.  I used the Sizzix Flowers and Vines #3 and the Tiim Holtz Tattered Florals.
Crinoline
Tulle
Brad
Jewelry Spacer

Using the Tim Holtz die, I cut two flowers from crinoline and two from tulle using the next-to-smallest flower.  

Using the Sizzix die, I cut two flowers from crinoline and one from tulle using the middle sized flower on the die.

Then I balled up each flower, pinching it firmly so it became crinkled.

Next the flowers were unfurled but not fully flattened out and I inserted the brad and jewelry spacer alternating crinoline and tulle with the top flower being crinoline, then tulle, then the other two small crinoline flowers.  Next a large tulle, then a large crinoline, large tulle and ending with a large crinoline flower.

This is how it will look when you have inserted the brad/jewelry spacer all the way through - sort of flat.

 Then I scrunched all the layers up toward the middle.

And finally, individually smoothed the layers down just a bit until I achieved the look I was going for.

That's it - easy peasy.  You can make two or three in just about 15 minutes.  Let me know if you have any questions.  If you can't find crinoline at your local sewing center, I have some for sale on my Funkie's Junk blog.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!