For the recent Non-traditional ATC swap, I wanted to make something a little offbeat. Luckily, I’d recently read a craft book by Rebekah Meier called MORE FABRIC ART COLLAGE. Ironically I haven’t read the first book, but now I want to! Ms. Meier creates the coolest, unexpected art pieces by making her own “fabric” and applying various techniques.
Inspired by her work, I made these two:
A Bajillion Details
I didn’t start with any plan. I just dragged out half my supplies and went to town making my own “fabric.”
First I made aluminum foil fabric by crumpling foil, flattening it, fusing it to interfacing, embossing it, and adding color with alcohol markers. I adore this look.
Next, I fused a plain paper towel to some interfacing and then dabbed on paint, stamped it, layered on more paint, and then ran it through an embossing machine as well. Turns out I really like embossing things.
The purple piece is muslin coated in matte medium, dyed with alcohol ink, stamped, and warped with a heat gun. I’m saving it for a future project.
After that I broke out the batting and went a little nuts with stamps, watered down gold paint, and some texture paste. I let the paste dry slightly and then used a q-tip to swirl and doodle designs.
At this point, I finally got an idea for the first ATC. That modeling paste looked a bit like a seashel when I cut it. So I ran with that and worked on the base and framing. I added a loose running stitch for extra texture with a lovely variegated floss and finished the edges. Cut some foil fabric to accent my centerpiece, and dug out some cool beads. For the seashell, I painted it with watercolors and added some brown ink to define the edges. The batting was stitched over some stiff felt and backed with a nuetral fabric to finish things.
The end result:
ATC number two came together much more quickly. I tore up and layered my paper towel fabric onto some stiff felt with a glue stick, then I used the embroidery foot and rainbow thread on my sewing machine to stitch everything in place with a loopy pattern. A bit of batting and some metal beads acted as a frame for another piece if the aluminum foil fabric.
. That stained parchment paper from painting, a bit of old lace, some weird strawish packing material…