Burst Bag

This week I've been adding surface layers to decorate a canvas bag. The techniques could be used to decorate a canvas, cards, a quilt block,  a baseball cap ...

The medium I used was EXpandIT 3D Expanding Fabric Medium which I coloured with  a couple of Adva-Print concentrated fabric colours 

I used the TCW287s Mini Burst stencil to create the design.

My bag was new so I washed it and then ironed it when dry.

Before you start decorating a bag, it is good to add some thick card inside the bag, to stop it from sticking together and also having the design seep through to the other side. This way you can decorate both sides independently if you wish.

First I added EXpandIT mixed with a little golden yellow using a sponge brush. Here you can see that I didn't cover the whole stencil design. 

Without waiting for this to dry, I added fluorescent orange to the coloured EXpandIT and added that to the rest of the stencil design. 

I then hung the bag up to dry.

Once dry I used a heat tool to expand the 3D medium paint. Keep moving the heat tool around to avoid overheating/scorching the medium. You can watch my burst design expanding here

I wanted to add a little sparkle to the burst design with foiling.

First I added some flexi glue holding the bottle at 45 degrees and gently squeezing. I put some on top of the expanded medium and a little just at the edges of the burst design.

I let this go tacky, then laid a foil sheet over the top. I used two different transfoil sheets, summer rainbow and rose gold.

You can see my transfoil technique here

Here is my finished bag design. What do you think?

What would you decorate using these techniques?

Colours of Autumn Die Cut Cards by Teresa

Hello and welcome back to the Colourcraft blog.

Today I have a simple tutorial for creating striking cards using Brusho Crystal Colours and die cuts.

Take some mixed media paper and spritz with water before sprinkling different colours of Brusho.

Spritz lightly again to help the colours move and blend.

Let the colour dry, either naturally or gently with a heat tool.

Next, choose some simple cutting dies and die cut shapes from the coloured paper. Think about both the die cut itself, and the negative 'waste'.

Finally layer with dark brown card and finish with a sentiment sticker.

15g brusho

Clear Spray Bottle

Heat Gun

Creating Texture

Have you discovered Texture Magic yet?

This week I have been quilting with a layer of shrink fabric interfacing and then using the steam from a steam iron to cause it to shrink and create an interesting texture on my silk Autumnal fabric. This is the real colour of the fabric, I'm not sure what happened to the colour on the other photos which went very pink!

Sew texture magic to the back of your fabric, apply steam and the fabric shrinks approximately 30% in all directions creating a beautiful textured effect. The result is permanent, washer and dryer safe.

I made a sandwich by placing my fabric face down, adding batting and then a piece of the polyester Texture Magic interfacing. The instructions tell you not to worry about any wrinkles in the Texture Magic as they will disappear after steaming, which is indeed the case. I smoothed it outwards as I pinned from the middle of my piece.

Quilting

My fabric has three-inch stripes so I chose to use these as a guide for my first quilting of straight lines to form a 3” grid.

 The instructions say you get more texture the closer together your stitch lines are, so I think this distance is the maximum to get any texture.

Inspired by all the berries around, I chose to free motion quilt round(ish) shapes with a variegated thread with blues, plum, berry pink (Mettler silk finish “Berry rich” 9816). I free-motion quilted alternate squares of my grid.

In the remaining squares I hand quilted a cross in the centre using bright orange (Aurifil 50wt 1133). I measured and marked the centre of the grid with the air erasable pen. I then added a bead to the centre of each cross from the red mix of Indian beads.

Steaming

I laid the fabric on my ironing board with the Texture Magic side up and set the steam iron to a hot steam setting. Similar to the hover technique for the Tyvek Autumn leaves I made earlier this month, you need to hold the iron close to but not touching the interfacing in order to get the texture and dimension effect (rather than pressing it flat).

As it is steamed it puckers and pulls in until it reaches the point it doesn’t pull in any more.

My hand slightly quilted squares puffed up more than the more heavily machine quilted squares.

Sewing

I’m planning to make a bag with my piece of textured quilt, but I'm tempted to make a cushion cover as the fabric would go well in the Ecclesall Textile School sewing lounge!

This will have to wait though as I have three customers sewing projects to complete and several workshops to lead in the next couple of weeks.

I will post my finished project on my Instagram feed for you to see.

I would love to hear about your adventures with Texture Magic

Helen x

Monoprinting with Gelli Plates and Leaves

As you have seen from posts by other members on the design team- Autumn is in the air! Soon temperatures will drop and leaves will start to get their beautiful colors.

This week I want to show you how you can use actual leaves and a selection of acrylic paints celebrating the colors of Autumn, to make beautiful monoprints on fabric or paper!

I gathered together a selection of leaves from my garden- fresh, green leaves work best! I also had a Gelli Plate, a rubber roller., and, of course, a selection of Colourcraft Eco Acrylic paints. I had also prepared several 6" squares of unbleached muslin.

I dropped a few colors onto the surface of my Gelli Plate, spreading and blending with the rubber roller. I then laid a leaf on top and rolled some color on that.

I then laid a piece of fabric on top and rubbed it- making it so the paint adhered to the fabric. then gently peeled off the fabric.

Fun! I removed the leaf from the paint, turned it over, and repositioned the leaf.

Below can you see prints from both side by side.

So I took up another leaf and played for a while- applying paint to the plate, the leaf, or both! 

I worked with this leaf for a while- adding paint to the plate, the leaf or both! And here are the results!

I hope you enjoyed this week's blog! We would love to see what you get when you give this technique a try! 

-Tamara

Gelli Plate 5" x 7"

Eco Acrylic Paint

Rubber Roller

Colours of Autumn Tag with Teresa

I love Autumn, the changing colours signal the end of summer and the nights begin to draw in. Today's project has some of those rich colours and texture - an autumnal tag.

I began by crinkling up some Tissuetex and gluing it to my tag with matte medium.

I added some eco-acrylic in crimson and yellow ochre.

Next I added a subtle shimmer with Copper Brusho Shimmer Spray.

I used a dry brush technique to highlight the texture with gold fabric paint.

Now I worked on my embellishments - I heat embossed a wooden bird on branch and found some orange and gold sequins.

I glued these in place then added a sentiment sticker and some ribbon trim.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you enjoyed my walk through.

Eco Acrylic Paint

Mettalic fabric paints

Brusho Shimmer Sprays

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