Spun cotton mushrooms (sometime referred as German spun cotton mushrooms) are colorful and cute little things. In this tutorial, you can learn how to make your own from blank spun cotton mushroom shapes.

Blank spun cotton mushrooms

Project materials

• Blank (unpainted) spun cotton mushrooms. They come in many sizes. For this tutorial, I used the 25mm mushrooms. But smaller mushrooms would work too.
• Paint: pick any color you like plus some white paint for the dots. I used enamel craft paint to give them a nice vintage shine.
• A gloss finish to replicate the ‘lacquered look » of spun cotton mushrooms. I experimented with several products and found that both Liquitex gloss medium & varnish and Mod Podge super gloss worked well. TIP: Make sure the mouth of the gloss finish bottle is wide enough to dip the mushrooms in it. If not, you may have to pour some of the finish into a cup.
• Green stem wire (aka flower wire) and a pair of pliers. I used an 18 gauge wire.
• Bamboo skewers (to hold the mushrooms while you work on them, all mushrooms have a hole at the bottom).

Directions

• STEP #1: Paint the mushroom caps with nice and flashy colors. Use a paintbrush, or even easier: dip in paint.
  TIP 1: Use a bamboo stick to hold your mushrooms while you paint them.
  TIP 2: Make sure you can rest your bamboo sticks straight up when you are done painting. You can stick them in the ground or improvise some kind of device (a wooden board with a few holes in it for example). 
• STEP #2: Apply the « lacquered » finish. When the caps are dry, dip the mushrooms into your gloss finish and  let the excess drip back into the jar.
  TIP 1: Only the caps needs to be lacquered.
  TIP 2: If you get any air bubbles mixed with the glossy finish on your mushroom caps, you can  make them disappear by gently poking them with the pointy end of a bamboo skewer.

VERY IMPORTANT:

While the gloss finish hardens, make sure that the mushrooms sit as upright as possible. I used a piece of wood in which I drilled a bunch of small holes. You can also use a piece of polystyrene, a piece of foam, a piece of moss, or just stick the skewers in the ground.

• STEP #3: When the gloss finish is hard, paint white dots on the mushroom caps
  TIP 1: to make nice round dots, you can use the non pointy end of a bamboo skewer, dip it in white paint, and gently dab the paint onto the mushroom caps. If you use a brush, it will be a little harder to make round dots (but not at all impossible though).
  TIP 2: I find that in the end, the mushrooms look better if I vary the size of the dots and don’t paint too many dots. Sometime simple is better.

• STEP #4: Use your pliers and cut your green stem wire into 6″ pieces. The stem wire I bought comes in 18″ long sections. So I made 3 stems with each section.
  TIP: If you want to glue the stem wires to the mushrooms, use a  glue gun. Hot glue adheres very well to spun cotton and it only takes a few seconds.

This is it. I hope you enjoyed this craft idea.  (German) spun cotton mushrooms can be used in flower arrangements, as cake toppers, or to decorate the house. They also look great as ornaments on a Christmas tree.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to get in touch of feel free to leave a comment. It’s always great to hear from you.

Check out our tutorial and learn how you can easily make beautiful mushroom necklace pendants from Spun Cotton Mushroom blanks. 

Project materials: 

– Small size Blank spun cotton mushrooms.
– Your choice of acrylic paint colors (any paint that works on paper will also work on spun cotton).
– A high gloss varnish.
– A few jewelry eye pins.
– A jewelry plier set (flat nose, round nose and side cutters). You could get away with just a pair of wire cutters.
– A few toothpicks or bamboo skewers.
– A safety pin.

Step by Step Directions: 

Below is a detailed pictorial followed by written instructions.

1/ Gather all your materials.

2/ With a safety pin, pierce the mushrooms from one end to the other.

3/ Slide the eye pins in the holes you just made to make sure they fit.

4/ With the wire cutter, shorten your eye pins. They need to be a little shorter than the mushrooms.

5 to 7/ Grab the cut-off portions of your eye pins. With the round nose plier, make little loops and cut them loose.

8/ Make sure you have all the hardware you need. For 3 mushrooms, you need 3 shortened eye pins and 3 little loops.

9 and 10/ Paint the caps of your mushrooms. I like to use a bamboo skewer to hold the mushrooms while I paint them. The skewers also double as neat resting stands.

11/ When the paint is dry, paint little white dots on each mushrooms.

12 and 13/ When the dots are dry, dip each of the mushrooms into a gloss varnish all the way to the bottom of the stems.

14/ While the varnish is still wet, insert the shortened eye pins into the mushrooms caps. Push down on the pins to make sure the eye parts get in contact with the varnish. While the varnish dries, keep your mushroom as upright as possible otherwise the varnish may be thicker on one side of the cap than on the other.

15/ When the varnish is dry (it may take a few hours, maybe even an entire day depending on what varnish you used) add the little loops to each of your mushrooms. I used two pliers to open and close the loops.

16/ Tear drop finish (OPTIONAL). When you are done, you can dip the bottom of the mushroom pendant into mod podge and let it dry in an upright position. It will cover the hole at the bottom of the mushroom and give it a nice tear drop finish.

YOU ARE DONE! 

Project variation: Swarovski crystal mushroom necklace pendant. 

• 

• 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Note that you can also use the same technique to make mushroom earrings or bracelet charms. Happy crafting and as always, let us know if you have any questions!