Needle felting

My needle felting supplies came yesterday. I'd had a long couple of days was too tired to concentrate enough to craft, so was slobbing out in front of coronation street and had a little play with it.

I bought my colour co-ordinated 'kit' from Crafty Notions,

http://www.craftynotions.com/npk.htm

and this is what came in the plastic box:

A fairly dense sponge block - about 4 x 6 x 1.5 inches.
Felt and muslin
several shimmery nylon fibres
2 different colours of wool
a length of wrapped wool fancy fibre
some silk or imitation silk fibres
a bit of organza ribbon
5 felting needles
1 tool

I laid my 'backing material' (felt for my first go, the instructions say you can use the muslin the end effect would be different.)

I laid fibres of various kinds randomly across the felt and started stabbing with 4 needles in the tool. I also tried using one needle without the tools, as the instructions suggested, and discovered that I liked that much better! It gave me more control over what I was doing and my 'inner control freak' was much happier about that!



There is a lot of repetitive stabbing, but the fibres felt together quite quickly and you have a great deal of control over which elements and colours go where (unlike traditional 'wet' felting).
I think this is a great way of creating small embellishments - you can make a patch of 4 x 4 inches of felt in half an hour or so, and you could cut or die cut (or maybe even punch?) shapes out of it, to add to other projects. Or you could easily make enough to turn into a little evening bag.

I think the kit is probably OK in terms of value for money, but if I had understood the process and requirements better, I'd just have bought 5 medium felting needles and the foam - because I already have felt and lots of fibres in my stash!

I did like the fact that this is something you could take with you and do anywhere - doctors waiting room, train, bus etc and the results are fast enough to satisfy my 'instant gratification' needs.

Masking ATC

I am in a swap where we are required to use 'masking' as part of the process. I had fun with these. I had bought lots of distress inks when they first came out, but they never really inspired me. They seemed a bit dull. I did watch a couple of demonstrations by Time Holtz and realised that the blending, layering and activting the inks with water were important steps , but even armed with that knowledge I never managed to make anything I liked so they have been sitting in a box for some time now!

Annie showed me a new (to me) way of using them - I finally tried it out last night and now I am in love with distress inks!!! I took a craft sheet, dabbed the ink pads onto it (colours next to each other, not on top of each other), spritzed with water, and dabbed my white cardstock onto it. Repeat as often as you need to cover your card. I used Spiced Marmalade and Broken China. I ended up with the most beautiful combination of blues, bluey greens and rusty colours blended into each other. I cut the ATCs from this using the Wizard - so much easiert o get perfect ATC size and shape than knife and ruler, or paper cutter!



I stamped my image with Stazon, then stamped it onto a 'post-it' sticky note, and cut that out. I laid the mask I'd made over my stamped image, and added more Spiced Marmalade to the background around the mask, then lightly spritzed with water to blend the inks. I dried it with my heat gun before stamping a numbers background using Brilliance Coffee Bean, and the words in the window in Ranger's Snowcap pigment ink. I finished the ATC with a few white dots around the edges, using a Ranger Inkessentials white pen.

The interesting swap results

Here are the first sets of the interesting swap ATCs. 4 stampers, the same stamp, and all the freedom in the world. Don't they look different? Mine are always bottom left, Rosie's are top left, Carol's are top right, and Annie's are bottom right.




Notice how Rosie has reversed the image - great idea!

An interesting swap

I've been involved in an interesting swap over the last 2 weeks or so. We were divided into groups of 4 players. The idea is that each player made 4 ATCs using their own stamp, then mailed the stamp onto the next player, who made 4 ATCs then mailed the stamp on to the next player, and so on. Once we had worked with all 4 stamps, we mailed a set of the 4 ATCs we had made to the other players. I was in 2 groups, and here are the ATCs I made.

This was made using a Home Impressions stamp provided by Rosie - I used half of the stamp, rotated and stamped 3 times. The background was 4 Radiant Rain interference colours sprayed onto black card stock. I stamped with versamark and embossed with Moonlight Bronze Obsidian embossing powder from Lindy's Stamp Gang, and punched some small flowers from plain black card and glued them on. I mounted the image onto a striped silver metallic background, which I coloured with Brilliance Pearlescent Crimson ink.


This was Mawgan's stamp - made by Paper Artsy - background was made from Amaeretti de Soronno biscuit wrappers glued onto cardstock and coated with gesso, then stamped with Ranger archival ink in sepia. The 'ribbon' down the side is self adhesive paper ribbon, which I coloured with distress ink. The heart was punched form a hand made background paper, embossed in a cuttlebug folder, and highlighted with Teasure Gold. A few tiny copper coloured peel offs finished it off.


The background for this ATC is stamped with Brilliance Coffee Bean ink onto some glossy cardstock coloured with alcohol inks, using a Madjac stamp. Liz's stamp was the inkspot and text stamp, which I stamped onto shrink plastic, texturised while still hot, and attached with a brad. There is a face behind the shrink plastic 'door'.


This was Carol's stamp. I struggle with Victorian images, and had trouble with this stamp, which didn't 'grab' me. Eventually I stamped it onto a Twelve x 12 paper using purple ink and green iridescent embossing powder, then stamped some faint scrolls in the corners with a chalk ink. I added a polymer clay butterfly to finish, and mounted it onto purple pearlescent cardstock.


Annie was mean to me, she knows I love this stamp by Cory Celaya, but find it hard to use. Well, I had to use it this time LOL. I stamped the background by stamping the stamp 3 times in 3 colours, offsetting it each time. I stamped the image onto 'mother of pearl' fantasy film using blue Stazon ink, and cut round the image and used this as the focal point. I made a sheet of 'paper' by fusing angelina fibres together with inclusions of fantasy film, and cut small squares out and added them to the ATC with wire, threading small beads onto the wire to add interest. Finally, I mounted it onto dark purple pearlescent card.


This was an interesting stamp, by Queen's Dresser Drawers, again from Annie. I had some 'wrap around' cardboard ATC holders, so daubed them with several colours of Radiant Rain, then embossed them inside and out with 2 texture stamps and Moonglow Bronze Obsidian embossing powder. I made polymer clay embellishments as 'closures'. These were black clay pushed into home made silicone moulds which had been brushed with PearlEx, and 'cooked' for 15 minutes in the Melt Pot. The ATC inside was stamped onto 'waste' paper which has overspray of Radiant Rain from other projects, and embossed with the same embossing powder. I punched holes down the left hand side and mounted onto deep red cardstock.


This was my own stamp. I stamped it onto a hand made background, layered some of the paper 'ribbon' which I'd coloured to match on top, and mounted it all onto some dark green textured card stock.


This was also my stamp, by Queens Dresser Drawers, stamped onto a background paper made by spraying gold colourwash spray from Outside the Margins onto watercolour paper, then stamping the image and embossing with Moonglow Bronze embossing powder, and adding a black Hearty air dry clay shell moulded piece coloured with Treasure Gold.

I will ask the other players in the swap if I can add their ATCs to this post so that you can see how we each used the same stamps. Watch this space!

Shrink plastic discovery

I was making some shrink plastic embellishments for an ATC swap, and I wanted them to co-ordinate with the background paper I'd made.

So, I used 3 colours of ink from a Colorbox queue to stamp my image, overlapping and offsetting it as I went along. Then I shrank the plastic, as per usual, and texturised each piece by stamping into it using the same stamp (uninked) before it cooled.

When I touched the pieces, the ink felt a little tacky, which struck me as odd, as I've used Colorbox inks on shrink plastic before and they had always heat set perfectly. When I looked at the packaging I realised the queue was 'classic pigment ink', rather than the chalk ink I thought I'd been using. Perhaps it doesn't work in the same way.

I left the pieces overnight, and when I touched them they still felt tacky, so I decided to seal them. I painted one with Diamond Glaze, and watched, horrified, as the ink dissolved before my eyes. I quickly wiped the diamond glaze off, thinking that I may be able to salvage the shrink plastic for another project if it wasn't shiny. I tried other products on the remaining pieces,and the ink dissolved on all of them. I had no more shrink plastic in my stash, so made alternative embellishments for the ATCs.

Then I decided to look at the shrink plastic pieces I'd made, to see if they could be turned into something useful.

The one on the left is how they all looked after the ink dissolved
(remember to click on the image to enlarge it)


I rubbed Sapphire Treasure Gold over the shrink plastic, and it brought the texture out beautifully (2nd from left).

I rubbed the Treasure Gold off with a baby wipe for a more subtle effect (3rd from left).

The final piece (far right) hadn't texturised very well in the original process, so I decided to try re-heating it and stamping into it.

Nothing seemed to happen, it didn't seem to soften with heat, and although I stamped into it again, I couldn't see any texture. And then I added the Treasure Gold, and realised the second stamping had given a rough sandpapery effect where the stamp touched the plastic. Cool....

I will play with this again, on purpose, next time!!!

A gift for Sweetpea

It's Sweetpea's turn to get gifts from all the Art Venturers, and she wanted something 'funky, with bright colours and black & white checkerboards'. This is not my usual style or colour palette, and I'm not sure my colours are quite as bright as I intended, but this was my fifth attempt at a gift, and the only one I've managed to get finished - I binned the previous attempts half way through!



I took some mount board, and painted it with gesso. I stamped a harlequin design into it whilst the gesso was wet - the gesso doesn't need to be thick, even thin gesso will show an impression form the stamp. I washed the stamp quickly, and let the gesso dry. I added colour by applying blue, green, red and orange acrylic paints thinly, using a baby wipe. I added a second coat of some colours. A kind friend sent me a zettiology stamp recently, and I decided this was the perfect project for it, so I stamped it onto white watercolour paper, using Stazon permanent ink, and carefully cut it out. I glued it onto the background, then glued black & white chequered tissue paper to the edges of the piece. I gave the whole panel a couple of layers of glossy glaze, then added the four flower embellishments. I added a hanger to finish it off. I hope Sweetpea likes it.

Gesso on photographs ATCs

These 3 ATCs began life as photographs in a gardening magazine. I painted them with a thin layer of white gesso, then used a Versamark pen to draw dots and lines on the images. Finally, I sprinkled gold embossing powder and heated. Thye remind me of Cloisonne work, but in chalky pastels!

Paper Quilt tutorial

I have been asked to do a step by step tutorial for the paper quilts I have been making. These quilts are inspired by Beryl Taylor, and I would recommend her book - Mixed Media Embellishments - to anyone. Her work is much more detailed (and beautiful) than mine, and involves sewing, fabric, and more complicated techniques. I have simplified what Beryl does and translated it from mixed media to paper.


This is my favourite paper for making paper quilts with - it is smooth, heavy, and feels lovely. It also takes inks and paints beautifully, and holds up well to the quilt making process.



Unfortunately, I had run out of my favourite paper and didn't want to wait for mail order, so went looking for a substitute. this is what I found- it is the same weight, but not nearly as smooth, and doesn't take ink, colourwash sprays, or paint quite as well. It did hold up to the process, but it isn't as flexible as my favourite paper....

When I start to make a paper quilt, the first thing I do is decide on the colour. This particular paper quilt is going to be white - an unusual choice for me, as I love vivid colours. I don;t think I can cope with white without any contrasting colour, but I want this quilt to have a 'pure' quality which it would lose if I added a colour, so I have chosen to add touches of gold, which provides contrast and adds to the slightly 'holy' feel I am looking for - gold and white reminds me of churches...

Once I have decided on the colour scheme, I go through my supplies looking for all the bits and pieces I might be able to use. I am trying to use up scraps on these quilts, and long lost and forgotten embellishments, rather than buying anything new. I always end up with a large collection of possibilities, of which I will only use a little. Just getting it all out and looking at it always gets me thinking about how the quilt will look. Here are the things I spread on the table this time....

Brads & eyelets - if I had not almost run out of small round gold brads there would have been more of them on the finished quilt, but I only had 3!!!


Fabric flowers, beads and shells. At this point, I thought I would use the shells, but in the event, I didn't.

Some white picket fence (bought in the US in 2007), some fabrics, some white gauze, some handmade gauze 'paper', and some see through tissue type stuff with gold flecks in it.


A selection of buttons, punches, embossing powder, tags, grungeboard and a wooden stamp.


Some gold thread, pearl trim & ribbon.


A selection of ribbons, lace & trimmings, and some white sticky backed paper ribbon.


Some rubber stamps. I had begun to think I might want a 'harlequin' element in this quilt, so restricted myself to harlequins and some little tiles.


Some air dry clay embellishments and some little white satin flowers and butterflies.


So, I looked at all the supplies and contemplated things. And then I tore 2 sheets of paper out of the pad, and tore them up. I made a wide piece and a narrow piece. I tore very carefully and made sure the torn edges were showing on top of each piece.


I decided I wanted a fancy bottom to this quilt, so measured, drew, and cut a piece of paper the same width as the main section, with pointed scallops at the base.


I cut another piece of paper the same width as the quilt and tore the bottom edge, before running it through the Wizard in a harlequin cuttlebug folder (top left in the picture below). I cut 3 x 2 inch squares and ran those through the Wizard in the same folder (middle left) and finally ran my pointy scalloped edge piece through the Wizard in the tapestry/baroque cuttlebug folder (bottom left). I painted all my base and cut papers with white gesso, as I wanted a chalky finish to the quilt. I also chose two Paper Perfect castings from yesterday's marathon casting session, and painted them with white gesso (right hand side of picture).



I used a Versamark pen to go down the edges of my main and edge pieces, and gold embossed them, then stuck them together with double sided tape.


I gold embossed the torn edge of the top piece and the scalloped edge of the bottom piece, then stuck them to the quilt using double sided tape. I then added a touch of White Fire Treasure Gold to the raised areas of the embossing.


Now I started having fun. I tried various layouts, using the things I'd chosen from my stash. Sometimes this stage takes me quite a long time, sometimes it is quite quick. I never get an idea for the finished article from this, just a basic plan, a kind of framework or template for where I want the main elements to be. I work on the detail later in the process, once I have the framework sorted out. Here are a couple of layouts, which are very different from how the quilt turned out.


From the 2 layouts above, the only thing I really liked was the pearl trim covering the joint, and the elements I thought would go into the final quilt were the little squares at the top of layout 1, the shrine, and the buttons.

I looked at my punches and decided the quilt needed some little flowers, so I punched some out of gold vellum and also out of some baking paper which had caught some gold colourwash overspray.



I added the flowers to the sides of the quilt. If there is something I'd change about this quilt, it's the order in which I did some things - I should have added these flowers right at the end, as all the handling of the piece while I worked on it left these flowers less than perfect!


Then I decided the quilt needed some larger gold paper flowers and white beads at the bottom, and some buttons and gold beads at the top. I have some very fine gold coloured wire (from Rioja wine bottles!) which I used to attach these embellishments, but you could easily sew them on if you wanted. One thing I do is measure very carefully where I place things, and I make the holes in the paper with an awl before starting to attach anything - it makes the sewing or wire threading much easier.

Next, I decided to develop the little squares into slightly more attractive embellishments. Sorry the picture is so fuzzy, my Xmas present camera and I are still making friends. I took a square of the paper which had been run through the harlequin cuttlebug folder, painted with gesso and highlighted with Treasure Gold, a square of some sheer ribbon with a gold design painted onto it, a flower punched from pearlised card, and a small white brad. I punched a hole in the square, and used the brad to attach everything to the square and also to attach the embellishment to the quilt.

I took some more of the sheer and gold ribbon and cut it into strips about 1/4 inch deep and the width of the quilt. I laid one strip just above the pearl trim, and sewed some beads and sequins onto it, which also held it to the paper. The gaps between the sequins looked too bare, so I punched some little flowers from white paper and stuck those on top. Then I added the square embellishments.

I decided that my focal point was going to be a shrine. I had made the Paper Perfect cast using a shrine stamp, and painted it with white gesso, and highlighted with Treasure Gold. I found the perfect image on a Christmas card - an old painting of a mother & children. I gave it a coat of soft gel medium, then a second coat, at 90 degrees to the first. When it dries, you can see the brush marks, and it looks like canvas. If you gently rub Treasure Gold over it, the wax catches the high points. You can still see the image, but if you angle ti in the light, it all looks golden. It's hard to catch on photographs, but you'll get the general idea from the 2 pictures below.



Then I had another play with layouts, and liked the layout below enough to attach everything permanently.


When I was done, it still needed something, so I found a couple of german scrap shooting stars and added those. Here is the finished quilt.


It will be going to its new home in March. I hope the recipient likes it!!!

Paper Perfect embellishments

About 3 years ago, I bought some Paper Perfect. I had seen a demonstration and liked what the demonstrator did. Once I got the pot home, I played a little but the product didn't really grab me. About a year later I did some 'paper casting' with it and liked the results, but lubricating the stamps so it doesn't stick too badly and cleaning the mounted stamps afterwards is a real pain.

I opened the pot this week and saw that mould was beginning to grow on the walls of the pot but not on the product, so decided I had better use it or throw it away. I knew I needed some embellishments for some projects I have planned, so had a marathon paper casting session!


This is what the pot looks like, with a stamp coated in Paper Perfect at the top, a 'naked' unmoulded casting, and a 'finished' cast embellishment.


Here are some of the castings I made. They are hard to photograph, the detail doesn't show well until they are painted. I painted these with gesso, to give me a good base for using other paints later.


The process I use is as follows - ink up your stamps (preferably unmounted) really well with Versamark watermark ink. I have a suspicion that maybe ArmorAll or silicone spray may be an even better way of making your rubber stamps non-stick, but I don't have any to hand so used the Versamark. Dump a spoonful of Paper Perfect onto your stamp and spread it around with a palette knife. It needs to be somewhere between 1/16th and 1/8th of an inch (about 2-3mm). Now, put it somewhere warm and dry for as long as you can bear - at least 12 hours and preferably 24 hours. The airing cupboard is a good place, I have a radiator in my craft room which is permanently on, on a very low setting, and I lay them on top of that. They often stick when I try to uncast after 12 hours, but are much easier to unmould and less likely to stick after 24 hours.


Here are some examples of half dry pieces, what a stamp looks like when you've just taken the cast off, a couple of dry casts, and a couple of casts that have been painted with metallic acrylic paints then rubbed with Treasure Gold. Unmounted stamps clean up well if you put them in a bowl of warm water for a couple of hours, mounted are much harder to clean as you can't soak them.

Polymer clay play

Back in the summer, Annie & Karen taught me how to make polymer clay tiles and decorate them with PearlEx, and cooking them in the Melting Pot. I loved the effects, and have been meaning to try it again, but have never managed to find the time to do so. And then today, whilst looking for something else, I came across the Melting Pot and the polymer clay, and let myself get thoroughly distracted !!!

Click on the picture for more detail.

Most of these pieces were made in moulds, with just a few handmade tiles, shapes & letters. Some of the moulds (the lizard, the large oval and the triangle with the rounded corners) are Krafty Lady moulds, and two of those have a ridge halfway down the sides as they are pendant moulds. This way, I can but beading wire of some kind to make a fairly invisible way of attaching them to a chain or cord. Some of the moulds are home made moulds, made from charms and other 3-D items, and some moulds are from the Enchanted Gallery (dragonflies) or from an EBay seller who seems to have stopped making moulds (butterflies).

I dusted the moulds with Pearl Ex, which not only colours the pieces, but acts as a good release agent. I kneaded the black clay - Fimo Soft - until it was easy to shape, then presed it into the moulds. I tried to keep the pieces thin, then unmoulded them onto pieces of silicone coated non-stick baking paper that i had cut to be the correct size to fit in the Melting Pot pan. The tiles, letters and shapes were made by kneading the fimo until soft and plaible, rolling it out thinly (I used lolly sticks either side of the clay, and a paintbrush as a rolling pin!) and then stamping into the clay with a finely detailed flourish/scroll stamp (Tim Holtz Garment District). I brushed the clay with pearlEx and used a polymer clay blade to cut into squares and rectangles, or used little pastry cutters to cut the shapes. I added more Peal Ex here and there to change the colours, the pieces look more effective if there is more than one colour on them.

Once I had made all my pieces and laid them out on the silicone papers, I turned the Melting Pot on, at the highest te,mperature, and placed it on a board on top of the hob, so that the hob extraction fan could suck away any fumes. When Anbnie & Karen did this in the summer, they left the clay peices coooking for about 20 minutes. I sson realised that with my much thinner peices, 10 inutes was enough for most of them. Only the mermaid and the two pendants got the full 20 minutes. I cooked the embellishements above (plus duplicates of many of them) in about 12 batches, which took me about 2 hours.

Some of them looked rather too shiny and bright, so I added Treasure Gold here and there to tone them down a bit (the heart & the pillar).

This technique is really easy, I've had a fun afternoon, and I now have a great stock of gorgeous embellishements in my stash!

Gauzy gesso backgrounds

Back in October 2007, I created some textured black gesso backgrounds, which I used on formica samples to make necklaces:

http://adriennegoodenough.blogspot.com/2007/09/art-soul-necklaces.html

This is a variation on that technique, which makes a really lovely background. I usually make 3 or 4 sheets at the same time - this means the first sheet is dry enough for the next part of the process by the time I've done each thing to all 4 sheets.

First take an A4 sheet of cardstock, and old brush, some loose weave gauze or lightweight scrim (the kind that's used for bandage wrappings, I found mine on EBay), and some gesso - black or white (or even coloured) - I use Daler Rowney brand.

Cut your gauze into little random raggedy pieces - smallest about an inch by an inch and a half, largest maybe as big as 2 inches by 2 and a half or even an inch by 3 inches. Stretch them and pull them out of a shape a little, so that the edges get more raggedy, and the weave is less even.

Coat some of your cardstock with gesso - about an ATC sized peice - not too thin or too thick, just a generous coat - and drop a piece of gauze on the painted area. Use your brush to dab the gauze all over, embedding the gauze into the gesso. It doesn't matter if the gauze rucks up a little, or if an edge got folded - that's all fine. There should already be enough gesso on your brush to do this, but if you need a little more, then add it.

Repeat with the next section of the cardstock and another piece of gauze, and so on until your cardstock is all black (or white) and has gauze pieces emebdded all over it. Leave uneven open spaces between the gauze - as wide as a couple of inches in places, narrow as 1/4 inch in others. You will have something like this (click on picture to get a better view):


Now you need a stamp. It should be bold, and curly - a flourish, or perhaps something like this:



Take your gesso & gauze sheet, and again working in sections, give it another coat of gesso - this will cover any small unpainted bits you may see in the gauze, and will leave you with wet gesso in the random gaps. Stamp your stamp into the wet gesso in the gaps. The gesso doesn't need to be thick to do this - gesso is expensive, and thick gesso takes ages to dry. The end result will be fine with a thin coat. Lift, and stamp into the next gap.

Keep going until you sheet is coated with wet gesso, and all gaps have been stamped into. WASH THE STAMP. Do not let it dry with the gesso on or you may ruin it. Now you have something like this, if you used black gesso:


Or this, if you used white gesso:


Now add colour. This is a sample to show you how different colours can look on black. I used 9 colours of Treasure Gold wax, applied lightly (as if the surface was hot). The golds and pale colours show up much more than the dark colours. I let it dry for a while and then gave it all a rub with a soft cloth to bring out the shine. Click on the image for a better view.


And this is how the black sheet looks when all the rub on wax is one colour.


If you don't have any Treasure Gold or Rub'n'Buff or wax rub ons, I think you could get a similar effect by dry brshing metallic or interference acrylic paint on, or maybe even swiping the sheet with a versamark watermark pad and brushing the whole sheet with Pearl Ex, which will stick to the ink.

Finally, I sprayed my white gesso sample with a colourwash spray - in this case, Radiant Rain Emerald Isle. It's interesting how the colour disappears as it dries, here's a pic of a wet sheet next to a dry one:

Radiant Rain always looks betterif you use more than one colour, this is how the sheet looked when I'd finished it. I sprayed with Stargazer, which is a lilac ink with a green shimmer. It doesn't change the colour much but it adds to the richness. Finally, I rubbed all over the sheet lightly with Royal Amethyst Treasure Gold: