Fabric Paper

Hi there, it is Cec here and I am going to bring you an inspirational post today.  I am going to show you how to make fabric paper and then I will turn it into a Christmas ornament.

I started with a piece of white cotton duck fabric.  If you are going to use your finished product on something that will be turned into a wearable, it is recommended that you wash it first to remove any sizing.  I have a habit of always washing new fabric as soon as I bring it home from the store so this was ready to go.

The next step is to paint the fabric with a mixture of acrylic paint and fabric painting medium in a ratio of 2 parts paint to 1 part medium.  In this case I used Festive Berries Metallics, Champagne Gold Metallics and Dark Scarlet Multi Surface acrylic paints by Deco Art along with the Deco Art Medium.  I painted each one separately in random areas making sure to cover the piece of fabric.  The fabric medium keeps the paint from making the fabric stiff.

The Festive Berries paint didn't look as red as I wanted so I took a sea sponge and dabbed some Crimson Acrylic Ink by Daler-Rowney on those areas to add a little more depth of colour.

Next I added some stenciling with a TCW stencil called Mini Pattern Strips and Watering Can Archival Ink although I wish I had used Jet Black for the stenciling.

I did use the Jet Black to stamp a variety of snowflakes over the fabric from some Recollections sets.

The next step was to glue some crumpled tissue paper over the fabric with Mod Podge.  This is what turns the fabric into paper.

When the tissue was dry, I felt that it did not allow the stamping to show through as much as I wanted so I scraped some of it off and this turned out to be a good move.

 

Then I did more stenciling with some Wendy Vecchi Translucent Embossing Paste and allowed it to dry.  

Unfortunately this stenciling didn't show up as much as I hoped because it is translucent, after all.  I figured there would be a workaround and there was.  I laid the stencil over the various areas and added some Poppyfield Alcohol Ink.  Because the fabric is still flexible, I just bent it a little so I could see where I needed to lay the stencil down.  Once I coloured all the areas, I dry brushed some of the Champagne Gold Metallics paint over each of them and wiped them back with a baby wipe.

I wondered if there was a way to colour the embossing paste and still keep it translucent so I mixed it with a little of the Crimson Acrylic Ink and tried it on another painted fabric scrap.  While it was no longer translucent when it dried, it did maintain its smooth and shiny texture.  I would do this another time so wanted to show you how it looks.

Now it was time to turn my fabric paper into an ornament.  I am super lucky that my husband has bought a laser cutter so that he has something to keep him busy when he retires in 2 weeks and he cut strips of wood for me so I could make a Christmas tree.  Alternatives would be to cut strips of heavy chipboard or if you want to make a much larger tree, you could use paint stir sticks as long as you have a way to cut the cross pieces.

I forgot to take a photo but I painted each of the strips, front and back with Gesso, rubbed them with a piece of tulle (which acts as really fine sandpaper) and then coated them with the Champagne Gold Metallics paint.

Next I cut strips of the fabric paper to fit the cross strips and glued them on using Liquitex Matte Super Heavy Gel.   I only did the front for this ornament.

I glued each cross strip to the long piece using the same Gel and a piece of the wood as a spacer.  To finish my tree off, I added some seed beads and a satin ribbon at the top for a hanger.

I tried to take a photo of this on my tree but the camera starting giving me fits and every photo came out blurry so I am giving you a final look on my kraft mat.

I think this fabric paper almost looks like rich brocade and that is making me quite happy.  I hope I have inspired you to try your hand at making fabric paper and turning it into one of your works of art.  I can see it added to a card or canvas and although I didn't try it, I am sure you can die cut it.

You still have time to make something for our current challenge, 'Grungy Christmas' and perhaps you could consider adding some fabric paper to your creation.