Mixed media Butterfly

If you have seen my Insta feed recently you will have seen the pictures of butterfly in my garden, including one landing on my foot. They are the inspiration for this mixed media post where I use free-machine embroidery with fabric paint. 

I remember a lady at one of my free machine embroidery workshops being really surprised when I said I wasn't good at drawing. Art takes so many forms, and to be an artist doesn't mean you have to be good with a pencil!
So to help me, I found a non-copyright image of a lovely butterfly (American Monarch Butterfly, Danais Archippus to be precise) and printed it onto soluble paper.

I then laid this onto some cotton fabric and fastened it into an embroidery hoop.
The paper not only guides my stitching but adds stabilisation for the dance black free machine stitch I added.

I lowered the feed dogs on the machine and used an embroidery foot. The butterfly design gave me a guide for stitching.

See this in action 

Once the black was stitched, I ran the fabric under the tap and the paper dissolved.


 Whilst the fabric was still wet I used fabric paints to add colour to the butterfly with a fine brush - lemon yellow and gold. 

You may remember that last month I  made a screen from Tyvek Paper. Tyvek paper makes a great stencil and I used my Tyvek leaf stencil to sponge on a delicate leaf green.

I then used a foam brush edge to add some gold fabric paint. 

Once the design is dry, iron fix the fabric paint on a hot setting for 2 minutes or bake at 140°C for 4 – 5 minutes.

Tyvek Screen

This week I've made a screen from Tyvek Paper.

I had the A4 sheets of Tyvek paper which I took to my daughter who has a Silhouette Studio Cutter. We selected the Vine Lace pattern and cut four A4 panels. 

You could use A3 sheets or the 10m x 1m Roll which Colourcraft also stock. if you don't have access to a cutting machine then place the Tyvek paper on a self-healing cutting mat. You may want to use a temporary positioning adhesive to hold the Tyvek paper in place. Cut with a sharp cutting knife.

I fancy getting a roll and creating a hanging room divider. 

The advantages of Tyvek cutting are:
ease of cutting, it is durable so you don’t have to worry about tearing and ripping like you do with paper, your finished product is durable. 

I tried out the arrangement I liked linking the A4 pieces.

I chose to sew the pieces together with white thread but you can stick Tyvek with waterproof PVA wood glue.

I used bulldog clips to avoid pinholes and sewed with a fine size 60 needle. I started in the middle of the join and sewed to each end to avoid slipping. As I added more pieces I rolled the length on my sewing machine plate.

I punched a couple of holes in the top and hung with picture hanging cord.

Although I hung this screen on the inside of my window, as Tyvek is water-resistant, I may well use it as a garden decoration.

I am undecided about whether to colour my screen. I like the simplicity of the natural white but wonder about spraying with Brusho Shimmer Spray(s), for example. What do you think?

Tyvek Tulip

As the storms rage, I decided to dream of Spring and decided to make a tulip 

The first step is to colour Tyvek sheets and some paper covered wire. Tyvek has a distinctive pattern which is ideal for flowers. I used a mixture of diluted acrylic paint and then sprinkled on some Brusho crystal colour. I rolled the paper coloured wire across the wet Tyvek to colour that too. I then left them to dry

The name "tulip" is thought to be derived from a Persian word for turban, which it may have been thought to resemble. I've been experimenting with making different flowers with Tyvek paper. Making this tulip felt a little like creating a turban!

I studied the components of tulips to plan the flower. here is the templates I used to cut out the flower pieces from the Tyvek.

If you copy and paste this template image into a word processor and then enlarge it to A4 you will have the size I used.
I cut out the shapes of the template from the coloured Tyvek as shown:

I added detail to petals by stitching on them with variegated thread. You can do this by hand or machine, or just paint on some brush strokes for detail. 

I used a zig-zag stitch to fasten some coloured wire pieces onto the three outer petal shapes.

Inside the flower is a small, stemlike piece, the pistol, the very top part of the pistol is called the stigma and this was made using the bottom template piece, rolling it up and heating it to get the bubbly shape.  You can see I used a glass worktop saver held the Tyvek with a skewer and applied the heat with a heat gun in a well-ventilated space.

I then wound some stamens on with thread  (the sort sold for cake flowers). Next, I fastened a couple of inner (non-wired) petals with wire and zapped them with the heat gun to create some curling shape.

It needed a few hand stitches to feel secure.

I then arranged the three wired outer petals on, twisting the ends of the wire around the stem wire. A little more heat shapes and firms the petals.

Finally, I fastened on the leaves and finished the stem wire with green florist tape.

You may be interested to read the blog of the Autumn leaf arrangement I made with Tyvek. 

I would love to hear about any creations you make with Tyvek paper, please share them in the comments. 

Get Organised for Spring - Tyvek Planner Clips by Teresa

I like to stay organised, and making lists is the way I keep on top of things. These pretty planner clips will help brighten your day - even if you have a 'to do' list a mile long!!

I began by die cutting some circles from Tyvek:

Next I spritzed on various colours of Brusho Acrylic Mist Spray:

Once dry, I layered the circles and added a giant brad to the centre:

I crinkled the edges by carefully heating with a heat gun:

Then I used hot glue to attach a giant paperclip to the back, and added a word sticker to the brads:

Tyvek paper

Brusho Mist sprays

Heat Gun

Painted Tyvek Journal Cover by Karen

I have a number of kraft notebooks and I wanted to decorate one for a travel trip but felt the cover was a bit thin to take much multi-media treatment. Tyvek on the other hand is virtually indestructible unless subject to heat so I cut a piece of Tyvek larger than my cover and set about decorating that.

I had a piece of ribbon that I wanted to use as a closure so that guided my paint colour choices: Turquoise, Magenta, Phthalo Green and Yellow Eco Acrylic Paints plus Copper Eco Aztec Metallic Paint.

Using a paint knife, I dabbed on each colour in turn and then used a brayer to spread out each colour fairly randomly. It is important to leave plenty of the layer below visible to have lots of depth and the different colours visible at the end. When applied in thin layers the paints are semi-translucent so layering them also creates different tones than just the colours applied. No need to worry about creases in the Tyvek, I even created some of my own when brayering over it. They disappear when it is glued down and smoothed out.

 The four Eco Acrylic Paints I applied with this method resulted in this effect:

And then adding the Copper Aztec Metallic Paint added more depth and a fabulous metallic sheen:

Copper Design-It paste was added through a stencil and left to dry. This gave lots of 3D texture as well as more metallic sheen. (Sorry for the long shadows: Some late afternoon sun after a rainy day!)

Once the paste was dry I glued the Tyvek on to the notebook with Flexiglue spread out thinly with a paint knife, starting with the outside cover and then cutting the corners at an angle and turning and gluing the edges. However, I did not glue about a centimeter along the spine to allow the Tyvek to flex as the book was opened and closed: This might have been unnecessary caution as the Tyvek seems very flexible but better safe than sorry!

I also used Flexiglue to adhere the ribbon.

I covered the inner covers with printed paper to hide the edges of the Tyvek.

Finally I stamped the word 'jounal' on to the cover with Stazon permanent ink and then doodled a bit with some black and white markers. I didn't want to add any embellishments that might rip off when this is being used and being slid in and out of a bag but I know the Tyvek is going to offer good protection. I love the colours, the linen-like look of the Tyvek's texture and the fabulous copper paste!

Thank for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed today's project.
Karen (a proud journal owner)
x

Materials:  Flexiglue

Design-It Relief Paste	Tyvek Light Weight Fabric	Plastic Painting Knives	Eco Acrylic Paint	Aztec eco metallic paint starter paint
StazOn Jet Black

Mixed Media Mushrooms By Karen

I love all the wonderful wild mushrooms that pop up at this time of the year and they inspired me to make my decoration.

I had bought a wood base and I gathered up some cardboard pieces and rolls to recycle and create the mushroom shapes. Two tubes were cut in height and along their length and rolled narrower to make the different sizes. I filled the tubes with pieces of cardboard to make them more stable and give a bigger surface area to glue at the top and bottom.

To decorate the lower parts, watercolour paper was coloured with Brusho Crystal colours in Burnt Sienna and Light and Dark Browns

Cardboard boxes were used to cut caps for the mushrooms. Red, Yellow and Leaf Green Acrylic Paints were mixed to make a red-brown and, although they are unlikely to be seen, I painted over the cardboard with this.

Once dry, I cut up the watercolour paper to fit around the mushroom stalks and to create the gills of the mushrooms. These were accordion-folded and then sprayed with Copper Shimmer spray for the smaller mushroom, gold for the middle size and bronze for the larger one.

Lutradur and Tyvek fabrics are wonderful in the way they react to heat, shrinking and getting lacey effects so I wanted to use these for the tops of the mushrooms.

Pieces were cut to size: One Tyvek circle and two Lutradur circles for each mushroom. These were sprayed with Shimmer spray and left to dry.

Once dry, the watercolour paper was stuck on to the mushrooms using Flexi glue:

The Lutradur and Tyvek papers were heated to get those wonderful lacey, bumpy textures...

 and then glued on to the tops of the mushrooms with Gel Medium, Tyvek first followed by the two Lutradur layers:

The wood base was washed with Dark Brown Brusho Crystal mixed with water to match the mushrooms. I also used some Aztec Metallic Paints to rub over the raised parts of the Lutradur to enhance the texture and shine.

Finally, for some contrast on the tops, I added some Leaf Green Brusho Crystal colours to the bits of paper left over and reactivated them with water and gold Brusho Shimmer Spray. I used this to die-cut some leaves and glued these and some sequins to the tops of the mushrooms.

I particulalry love the stalks and gills though: Quite lifelike!

I hope this inspires you to make you own Autumn decoration. Please leave a link, or any comments and questions, below.
Karen
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Tyvek Light Weight Fabric	Brusho Shimmer Sprays	Lutradur	Gel Medium	Clear Spray Bottle
Eco Acrylic Paint	Heat Gun	Aztec eco metallic paint starter paint	15g brusho