Halloween Ideaology 2019 - Broomstick Plant

 In my last post I detailed how I made the urn shown above, and in this post I want to show how I made the dead funeral arrangement in it. It's really very easy and doesn't take long either, so let's get started.

 Gather the items you need: a broomstick, some Bouquet flower stems, Collage Medium, Distress Spray Stain in Ground Espresso and Antique Linen, Distress Sprayer with water and the thimble urn from the last post.

 If you missed it, I detailed how to make an urn like this one in the previous post here.

 Begin by pulling the handle out of the broomstick. You can discard it, but I recommend saving it and setting it aside for another Ideaology idea I'll post later involving the Owl from the Adornments pack.

 Spray the broom with water and make sure it gets wet through to the center. This will soften the bristles.

 I picked it up and swept it through the water, pressing the bristles down into the water and splaying them out.

 It made the bristles stick out like this. Now we are starting to get somewhere.

 Then I crinkled it up and rolled it in my hands like a meatball, crinkling and bending the bristles as much as I could.

 This is what it looked like when I was finished.

 I slowly started separating and pulling the bristles out and down.

At this point, stick it in the urn to see how it fit. Some brooms fit fine, like this one did, and some the top of the broom is too tall and it needs to have a little trimmed off where the broomstick was attached. I kept scrunching it -- you know what I'm talking about my big-haired 80's sisters! For the rest of you, you just carefully squeeze, shape, and fluff the bristles until they stand out on their own like awesome 80's hair.

 See what I'm talking about? I was a scrunch queen in the 80's and I had great hair just like this dead funeral arrangement.

 It great as it is, but I wanted it to be a little more dead looking. It looked kind of like my big 80's hair when I used too much Sun In.

That's me in the front on the left...hair all scrunched and Sun In-ed

I felt like this would be great for a tumbleweed in a western vignette, but not for my cemetery.

 So I sprayed it with Ground Espresso Distress Spray Stain.

 You need to move it so you get all the sides covered.

 While that is drying, spray the Bouquet flowers with Antique Linen Distress Spray Stain.

 You want them to look like they were once white flowers that have faded and yellowed as they dried.

 Then spray some of the Ground Espresso Distress Spray Stain and then dilute it a little with water.

 Take the still damp flowers (you don't want them to dry in between spraying them with Antique Linen and this step)

 Tap the edges of the flower petals into the diluted Ground Espresso Stain. It will slowly wick its way into the flower and really add to the dead and dried up look.

 Here they are with the edges colored. Let them do the wicking on their own.

 The centers needed colored too, so I just used a Ground Espresso Distress Marker and colored them by hand.

 Now to put it all together once the stained flowers and broomstick plant are dry.  You can put some Distress Collage Medium in to the bottom of the urn.

 You want a nice amount. But it will take awhile to dry so if you are in a bit of a hurry or feeling impatient, then do the same thing but with hot glue and it will go faster.

 Push the bottom of the plant into the Collage Medium or hot glue from a Glue Gun.You only have to wait a moment for the hot glue, but the collage medium needs time to dry -- several hours or overnight is preferred.

 I trimmed the flowers off the bouquet stems and didn't want their white stems to stand out, so I colored over each one with a Ground Espresso Distress Marker.

 Then apply a little bit of Collage Medium,

 and insert the stem in between the plant bristles.

 Add as few or as many flowers as you want to the arrangement

 The extra flowers can be used in other places on the project.

In the next installment, and the last one for this piece, I will point out the product used and any details that might need to be clarified.
If you have a question about anything on this piece, please contact me through the contact form at the right. My ability to reply to comments on this blog tends to come and go, and currently it is gone. I would love to be able to answer your questions, so please ask through the form and I'll address those things in the next blog post.
As always, thank you again for stopping by and for your support and comments on my posts. I may not be able to comment back, but I am grateful for each of you who take the time to read my posts and comment.
Tami

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