Scrap Escape: DIY Soft -Sculpted Canvas with Matching Card - with Petaloo, FloraCraft and Authentique

Soft Sculpture Canvas with Petaloo and FloraCraft
Hello. I'm here today to share more autumn goodness using the beautiful colors of the season. Today, I am sharing a canvas/sculpture and matching card crafted using Petaloo flowers, FloraCraft Foam Balls and other assorted products from FloraCraft in conjunction with Authentique's Harvest paper collection.

My inspiration for both projects started with the Authentique Harvest paper with it's warm orange, browns and festive theme. The card came first. I picked an adorable 3"x4" image from the journal card sheet called "Harvest One".

The adorable pilgrim boy is pushing a cart full of pumpkins, squash and produce from the field. I selected the Petaloo flowers to accentuate the colors of his abundant harvest.

Here are the close ups of the gorgeous Petaloo floral cluster.

The green center flower, Petaloo Botanica Mini-Pistachio , makes me smile because I think it looks like cauliflower in the cluster. How perfect!

My makeshift cauliflower is surrounded by Petaloo Sugar Mini Mocha flowers and dotted with some older Petaloo berry sprays from my stash in burgundy. The finishing touches include a rich burgundy ribbon and some paper punched pine sprigs.

After I created the card, I did some thinking and imagined how fun it would be to make those wonderful fruits come to life so I set out to make it happen. That's how the canvas came about. If you keep scrolling down, I provide a mini-tutorial as to how I created the assorted produce.

The canvas started with FloraCraft's foam balls. This package was great because there were various sized balls to help make my vision possible. The pumpkin was created with the 4inch foam ball while the apple and pear were created using the 2.5inch foam balls.

Step 1. Cut foam ball in half so that it can fit nicely in a reverse canvas setting.

Step 2. Cut a piece of muslin cotton to wrap and cover the foam. I added color to the muslin by using a combination of mediums to color the fabric - some mists and inks. A pumpkin has a variety of colors - yellow, brown, green, orange - so I used a variety of colors.

Notice in the photo below that the fabric is not totally colored. I left a bit of white space in the fabric to provide a bright highlight on the finished piece. Do not worry that the colors are not blended nice and softly at this point.

Step 3. I saturated the muslin cotton with a sculpture medium, then draped the fabric over the foam ball, smoothing till I was happy.

There are many mediums that will work well including the old fashioned and inexpensive white school glue thinned with water.

Tip: Once you add a sculpting medium to the fabric, the colors will all blend together and make your project look more unified and nicer. Trust me!

Step 4. This is what the back of my pumpkin looks like. A mess! But no need to stress over this because no one will see it. I did make sure to twist some fabric into a stem.

Step 5. The glorious thing about foam is that it can be shaped and sculpted. I chose to sculpt and shape after the fabric was added and had dried. I just thought the pumpkin ridges would be more apparent if added after the foam was covered.

I used a wooden skewer to make the ridges by rolling the skewer over the foam and rocking it back and forth till the ridge was satisfactory. It worked quite nicely. I also was able to add more color after the fabric was on the foam.

Step 6. I added thin jute to the pumpkin and tied it in the back. I believe this helped accentuate the ridges.

Step 7. I have a few finishing touches. I wrapped the stem with brown floral tape and I added some tendrils to the pumpkin's stem created using FloraCraft Green Stem Wire. I twisted the stem wire around a wood skewer - which is a great tool for making tendrils.

Additional tips for making the pear and the apple: I made the pear and apple the same way - using muslin covered FloraCraft foam balls. Once covered, I sculpted the shape of the pear and apple by rolling the covered foam on the edge of a table to help mold the foam till I was satisfied. The stems of the apple and the pear were created using the end of the wood skewer.

Step 8. Moving on to the canvas...

This is an 8x8 canvas. I turned it around and used the back as a sort of shadow box.

I cut a piece of Authentique Harvest paper and inserted it into the background of the canvas. I added ink to the frame of the canvas to blend the project and provide a finished, cohesive look.

I stapled FloraCraft Burlap Garland to the wood frame of the canvas so that the sculpted fruits could rest nicely in the burlap.

And here are a few more close ups of the finished canvas to show the gorgeous Petaloo floral accents. This photo shows the beautiful reds and greens of the Petaloo Briar Rose Canvas Holiday Mix flowers (RS5008-502/4).