Using a die cutting machine for textiles

This month my textile group was experimenting with a die cut machine for textiles. I own a 10 year old Cuttlebug machine but got to try out a big shot. If I was buying a new one I would probably get a big shot as it is larger and more stable than the Cuttlebug. Either machine will cut fabric.

We used the machines to cut different fabrics, emboss a variety of items and generally play around. It was a lot of fun. I found that it cut fabric better if I laid a piece of paper on the top of the fabric. Some thin fabrics needed a bit of extra card in the sandwich to make the die cut all the way through. This will make sense if you have a machine.

Different fabrics I tried were sheers, leather, felt, silk and cottons. Other items I cut were: metal shims, drink cans, foils, cellophane and foam.
Some of the items I embossed with the machine were: thin metals, drink cans, plastic folders, leather, cellophane (didn't work), lurex type of fabric, fabric that had iron on vinyl on the back, foam, vinyl and paper.

At the end of the day I had a variety of samples and thought I needed to do something with them so I would have a record of what we did. As always I made a couple of pages for future fabric art journals. This first page has a lot of the flowers I cut out. I added some purple metallic cellophane (gift wrap) that has been ironed to make bubbles as well. I did try to emboss it but it didn't work so I melted it instead.

This page has an embossed flower image for the focal point. I embossed the flowers on metal tape then used Prisme fantasy paints for colour. I think there are a lot of possibilities with this technique.

Creating with paper

I have been trying to keep up with the Colour me Positive art journal challenge this year and so far its working out well. I haven't been good at posting them here but I have been busy. 

 Week 14 - This page uses that crayon technique we all learned as kids. I used a white wax crayon to do the drawing and blue for the writing then sprayed over them with some dye sprays. I used watercolors to fill in the flowers and leaves. It was a quick page. 

Week 15 - This page was using the peeled paint technique on the word life. First you paint your image with acrylic paint then when it is dry you spread on some Vaseline or Aloe Vera gel in a few areas. You paint over the top with more acrylics, trying not to smear the gel underneath. When it is mostly dry wipe off the excess paint to reveal the color underneath. The word balance was done with crackle paint, something I haven't used for years. I like the way it looks on the page so I will probably use it more often now.

Week 16 - I wanted to do a doodle page so I could just sit and draw with the one good arm. It was fun to do but not something I would do often.

Week 17 - This week I wanted to make a 3D page so I used foil tape to make the blue door and embossed card to make the red door. It was a lot of fun doing something completely different. I am using this journal as a way to experiment with different techniques and ideas.

Week 18 - I had fun making a collage using previously printed papers this week. I think this page would make a great textile piece so you may see a similar design in the future.

Week 19 - Another mixed media page. I used embossing and paper piecing to make the background and clock. I did get a little carried away with the spattering but it is hard to stop once you get going.

Week 20 - I wanted to use silhouettes this week so I created a background for them using the insides of business envelopes glued to the page. I used the window for the quote and then used ink to stamp the circles for a grungy look. I used stamps for the flowers but also added drawing with a Pitt pen to add extra stems and grass. It is quite a messy page compared to the majority of my work which tends to be fairly neat. I love trying different styles because it stops artist block creeping in.

Several of these journal pages would be great inspiration for textiles. I can imagine week 14, 18 and 20 as fabric images and maybe some of my earlier pages too. That is one of the reasons I keep journalling, I can work out ideas on paper and use them to plan future textile works.

Everything you do has the potential for further exploration. If you are suffering a little artist's block I suggest you go back through your own work and pick a piece that you can see another idea in. Go ahead and develop your new piece using the old one to inspire you. It may be the technique you used, the colors or how they sit next to each other, the image or the composition. It may even be a piece that you think needs improvement and you want to redo it. Go ahead and get creating.

Textile challenge piece

I have been busy lately doing a lot of textile work. Over the next few weeks I have a lot to share.

Today I am sharing my finished wall art for my textile groups 2nd life challenge. We started last year collecting 12 items to be recycled into a piece of art and putting them in a bag. We were also allowed to add one new thing. At our December meeting we put all the bags together and then got to choose one that was not our own to use in our work. We also had a lucky dip to select the theme for our piece. I was lucky and got Music as my theme. It was a very broad theme. 

This was the bag I chose. I thought it looked interesting with the cardboard roll sticking out the top. It was fun going through the bag to see what we had to use. Some bags had very unusual items to use in an art piece. One of the rules of the challenge was that we should use 1 part of each of the 13 items we received in our finished art work.

This was what was in my bag. At first I was perplexed to how I could use this lot in a textile art piece, especially the mint tin which was quite hard to cut up because the metal was so thick. In the end I used tin snips to cut that into rectangles.  

I used all 13 items in my finished art work. Most of them have been altered in some way to make them fit into my theme and colour scheme. Here is what I did:
1. Cardboard roll - I cut it down the middle to flatten it then ran it through an embossing machine. I painted it green. You can see it in a couple of places, one is under the harp.
2. Ribbon - I applied texture paste through a stencil and when dry painted some blue and other pieces gold.
3. Foam crown - I removed the circles and stars then cut the last piece into a rectangle. I used texture paste with a circle stencil on the shapes then gave them a coat of dimensional magic to make them look shiny. The rectangle was run through the embossing machine and painted. It is under the beads at the top,
4. Ring pulls - these were flattened then heat embossed with pinkish embossing powder and threaded onto a ribbon.
5. Popsicle stick - cut into 3 then I used a wood burning tool to write sing on one piece. The other two pieces were given a coat of puff paint then painted. I really love that effect.
6. Black cord - I used my sewing machine to zigzag variegated thread over the black changing it completely. I then cut it into pieces and used it in a few areas.
7. Oval earring - The lower half was used to make the mandolin and to top is used like a button just above the mandolin.
8. Mint tin - I ran the tin pieces through an embossing machine and then painted and distressed the metal. They are the pinky/gold pieces in a few different spots.
9. Pink flower beads - I used alcohol ink to color them brown.
10. Bread tag - I stitched a piece of fabric paper and stuck it to the tag.
11. Clothing tag - I applied copper foil over the tag and used it under some beads at the top of the piece.
12. Christmas paper - I used the paper to make fabric paper which is the background and also some of the smaller backgrounds throughout the piece.
13. Self covered buttons - I hammered them flat and painted them to make them into records.
I also painted all the fabrics I was given and used them as backgrounds. The fake leather piece became my guitar and the sheer fabric became my beads and ribbon.
I added machine stitching and embroidery to tie everything together and make the piece attractive. The whole thing is mounted onto a piece of embossed felt that I had in my stash. It was quite a challenge and I am happy with the way my art finished up. If I didn't tell you would you know it was made mainly from a pile of junk?

Experimenting again with fabric paper.

I forgot to share the fabric paper experiments I made when I was testing the technique so here they are...

This first one has the wrapping paper underneath but I turned some of it over to the plain white side to make a checkerboard pattern. I did more machine stitching on this sample. I used a different tissue here and you can see some of it tore when it was wet. If you are going to paint over it later on that probably wouldn't matter, or it could be just the look you are trying to achieve.  Experiment with small samples of what you have before you start a big project.

 In these samples I used different paints on top to see how they would cover the design underneath. The gold is Lumiere paint and the other two samples are Golden artist acrylic. I put them on thinly so there was still some transparency.

This sample is the same paper as above but I used Silks acrylic glaze by Dreaming Color on top. It is more opaque than I thought it would be but is metallic so very shiny. It is an interesting effect. I also tested some Viva Inka-gold paint along one edge. 

So what can you do with all this fabric paper?  I made a grid style collage.

I used the fabric paper as the background and for some of the individual rectangles. I was testing out some ideas for my textile group's current challenge using recycled materials. Can you spot the pull tabs that have been embossed near the bottom left? I also have a bread tag on there, an old ice cream stick and an old bluebird earring that has lost it's mate. I raided my stash for a few extra embellishments and charms. I added beads, sequins, machine and hand stitching.  I like the way it turned out so I am going to do something similar for my challenge piece.

I did it as two journal pages so I can make a fabric art journal because I have run out of wall space to put all my art now. I will be adding pages throughout the year.

Experimenting with Kunin felt

 I am sharing some textile work today. I took part in a challenge for my textile group ATASDA to use Kunin felt in a textile piece. It is an acrylic felt so that means it will burn and distort with heat, unlike wool felt that won't change. I used some felt that had a pattern embossed on it by the manufacturer. I think the altered felt here would look great as a journal cover. Either sew a loose cover or glue it straight onto a hardbound journal/book.

   

 I put it flat on a baking tray that was protected with alfoil and baking paper. I sprinkled on silver embossing powder all over the felt.

 I used a very soft, large, clean paint brush to gently sweep across the felt so the embossing powder would fall into the embossed areas and I could see the blue felt again in the raised areas.  

 I put the tray in the oven at a low temperature (about 150C) and left it for 10 minutes. It was still a little unmelted so I left it a further 5 minutes to melt completely. I took it out of the oven and let it cool before using it in my piece. I was really pleased that my experiment seemed to work and only the embossed areas were silver.  

 In a different experiment I tried to spread paint over the embossed areas with a palette knife but it didn't work too well. I wrapped paper towel around a wooden block and used that to spread the paint around.

 It is a far more patchy look than with the embossing powder which may suit some projects but not the one I had in mind.  

This piece of felt was cut out with a wood burning heat tool.  I used a stencil for the design and enlarged the pattern using my computer. 

 This is the final picture for the challenge. I layered the different felts over a piece of sari cloth. It is very sparkly in real life.

Week 5 Index Card a Day

The theme this week was texture/stamps. I concentrated mainly on texture but also used stamps where I could. Sometimes I forget about using all the stamps I have.

 Prompt - California. My first thought was beaches but then I remembered I had these textured backgrounds I made on index cards a couple of weeks ago so I sort of did my own thing.

Prompt - red.  I used texture paste through a stencil for the background and then cut hearts out of the first card I had stamped and colored. I accidentally got green ink on it from the next card  so that is why I had to cut it up.  

 Prompt - flower bouquet.  I stamped two bouquets of flowers and colored them with markers.  I cut them put and put them together as a single bunch on another textured background.

 Prompt - coffee.  I used a coffee cup and real coffee to stamp some rings. I used a rust embossing powder on the rings. After I heated that I stamped some more rings and splashes onto the card.

Prompt - tomorrowland.  The first time we went to Disneyland we went straight into tomorrowland and got onto the Space Mountain ride. It was very scary because we had no idea that it was a pitch black roller coaster.  If we went again it wouldn't be so scary now. 

Prompt - Independence day or flag.  I was too lazy to draw the Aussie flag so I did some Tibetan prayer flags instead using embossed papers. 

Prompt - postage stamp.  I used a punch to make the butterflies from old postage stamps. I did feel like a naughty child defacing stamps at first but quickly got over that when I saw how pretty they now looked. 

52 cards...

I have been neglecting to share some of the cards I have been making. Somehow I jumped from week 16 to week 20.

Week 17 - The prompt for this one was Objet d'art.  I used images cut from a giftware catalog. I tried to choose colours that would work together and then arranged them around the frame I had painted. I had so many items cut out (I did them while watching tv with hubby) that I put them on the back of the card too. 

 

  Week 18 - prompt Army.  I couldn't think of a way to do a card about the military definition for Army so I twisted the prompt to suit my own sense of humour. The arms were painted with acrylics and then I added some colored pencil shading. It is a great way to store a bunch of poses to use in later drawings.

Week 19 prompt - dictionary.  I glued a dictionary page to my card with gel medium.  When it was dry I used coloured pencils to sketch some daffodils. Daffodils are a fairly easy flower to draw if you are just beginning to learn sketching.

Week 21 Prompt - niche.  This shows the hole I made in one card that I glued to a second one with two layers of black foam tape for a 3D effect. I had previously gessoed the first card and stuck tissue onto the second one.

I didn't like the yellow tissue so I covered the cards, front and back, with this paper that I know as mulberry paper (it may be called something else where you live). You can see it has lots of threads in it and when you tear it the edges are frayed nicely. I put lots of overlapping pieces on the cards and then dry brushed on a little silver paint to highlight the texture.

 I used two cards to make my niche.  I used scrapbooking brads for the flowers.   The butterflies are old pieces of jewelry that I had saved. I used wire cutting pliers to remove the jewelry parts and adhered them to the card with foam tape.

Week 22 prompt - trim.  A humorous take on the prompt.  I painted the background with acrylics and covered it with plastic wrap while it dried.  It gives the paint an interesting texture.   I did a simple sketch and colored it with pencils.

Week 23 prompt - emerald.  I used self-adhesive paper for the background of my card.  The tree was embossed on green metallic foil that was stuck to cardstock. I used alcohol inks to add more color to the back of the tree and then used a Brilliance stamp pad to add the copper color to the tree. The Brilliance ink works on most surfaces if you dry it with a heat gun.

Week 24 prompt - game.  I painted the card with distress paint and then used a stencil and distress ink to apply the pattern. I had the scrabble tiles in my stash (I think they were a freebie with a magazine) so used them to make the words.

I am now caught up with this challenge. I also have a bunch of index cards to share so will try to post again very soon. Keep making art and having fun.

Playing with atcs

I made some atcs yesterday with embossing powder as the main feature.

 

This one is a miniature version of my journal painting. The scroll on the right is cut out with a cuttlebug machine then heat embossed with Opals brand embossing powder. It covers the writing that was too small to read on this little painting. 

The seahorses are cut out with a cuttlebug then embossed with copper coloured Opals embossing powder. A stamp was pressed in the embossing while it was still hot. The background is distress inks smoosh technique. 

My final atc is a "Twiddly bits" butterfly embossed with purple and green embossing powder. The background is sponged gesso coloured with glimmer mist sprays.

Christmas cards.

A few more cards I made with the Kaszazz demonstrator. These ones have embossing as the main technique. My favourite is probably the first one.