Sunflower Decor | Production

With the aid of a few pictures we will guide you through our production process for Sunflower Gifts.

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Wood:

Bob and Sheila hand select the white pine used in the crafting of their Sunflower Home Decor. They choose a variety of widths and lengths always striving to avoid knots and imperfections in the wood. They often shop at Sutherlands in Salina, KS, Home Depot or UBC in Topeka, KS for the lumber.




Patterns:

Here you see Bob tracing around some of the Sunflower Kitchen Decor patterns that Sheila has created. To conserve wood, Bob uses the different widths for various Sunflower Decor patterns. Bob then cuts out the patterns using a band saw which you see in this picture.

Depending on the size of the pattern he may use the scroll saw for smaller items. Sometimes he can stack several pieces of thinner wood and cut them at the same time which is a great time saver. Bob also saves time by cutting many of the same pattern in one cutting session.

Routing:

The Sunflower Gifts are then routed according to the edge desired. Most wooden Sunflower Home Decor items will need a round edge or coved. Bob is making a coved edge on this piece.

Sanding:

Next step in producing the Sunflower Gifts is sanding. Bob uses a palm sander on most pieces and then finishes each one by careful hand sanding. He use 80-100 grit for the electric sander and 120-180 for the fine sanding done by hand on every Sunflower Home Decor item.

Staining:

Bob uses Zar’ Fruitwood’ stain on these Sunflower Kitchen Decor pieces. He uses a foam brush to apply the stain then carefully wipes off excess with absorbent clothes. Each of these Sunflower Kitchen Decor products will be allowed to dry for 24 hours before painting.

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 Painting:

Sheila uses CeramCoat by Delta acrylic paints and begins the painting process by deciding which color to use for this session. Her usual choices are Navy, Hunter Green, or Blue. Sometimes White if she is painting Sunflower Decor angels. Using one color per session will save time. Items to be left as stained are put aside not needing a base coat of paint. During one process Sheila will base paint as many as 3-5 dozen Sunflower Decor gift items.
The first coat must dry for an hour before the second is applied. Acrylic paints dry much faster than oil. Sometimes a little hand sanding is required between coats.


Sponge:

When the second coat of base paint is dry, the sponge painting process takes place. Here you see Sheila sponging a light blue over the base of the navy napkin holder. When that is dry she will rinse the sponge and apply white over the light blue.

When every piece of Sunflower Home Decor is sponged the painting of leaves begins.

Leaves:

Sheila always starts with painting the leaves so they will be ‘behind’ the sunflower itself. She loads her paint brush from a foam plate which holds 3 shades of green paint. By using the different shades you avoid a one dimension leaf. Sheila will paint the leaves on as many as 3-5 dozen items before going to the next step of painting the sunflowers.

Sunflowers:

Sheila mixes several shades of yellow paint to get just the right shade of golden yellow for the Sunflower pieces. She keeps a variety of brush sizes on hand for varying sizes of flowers. Here you see her painting the first petals on a napkin holder. Sheila prefers to paint alternate petals and then comes around again and fills in. The petals are allowed to dry for an hour before Sheila begins the shading and outlining .

Shading:

A ‘dry’ brush is used to ‘daub’ shading around the center of flower and lightly brushed over the petals to create the outline effect. The slightly raised edges of the petals catch this shading as the brush moves over them. Sheila has a shading color that she mixes starting with a base of ‘burnt umber’.

Highlights:

The pale yellow highlights are carefully applied to just the right petals on each Sunflower Decor item.

Center:

The burnt umber brown centers are done with sponge stencil brush. Sheila keeps several sizes on hand and sometimes makes her own to fit smaller sunflowers. The really small centers are done with ‘Q Tips’ and even smaller ones are done with the tip of a very small brush.

Seeds:

The tiny dotted yellow ‘seeds’ are applied with the tip of a very small brush. Sheila tries to vary the size of dots to provide a realistic appearance. This step can be the most time consuming step in the entire process.

Polyurethane:

After the final paint application has dried for 24 hours, Sheila smooths on the water based polyurethane with a soft brush. The water based polyurethane dries in 30 minutes so a number of coats can be accomplished in one day. Clean up is quick and easy.

Finishing:

When the polyurethane has dried for 24 hours it is safe to handle these sunflower kitchen Decor items. Depending on what the item is, Sheila attaches hangers where needed, foam pads, lining, screws etc. Allowed to ‘cure’ for several days they are then taken to storage until time to fill an order or take to a craft show.

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