Fabric Tag

A week or so ago I showed some oiled paper on my desk which I was getting ready to stitch onto and make into fabric tags for a swap. I finished them this weekend. The 9 tags are all very similar.

Side 1 uses the oiled paper and this side of the tag is paper based. The oiled paper is made from ordinary copy paper which I have coloured with spray inks in various greens. Once dry I have brushed this with baby oil and then crumpled it repeatedly until it becomes very soft and 'fabric like'. I then iron my paper between newspaper sheets using a hot iron to blot out most of the oil. This paper can then be stitched easily. The flowers (mainly Paperartsy stamps) are stamped onto tissue paper, backed onto fusible webbing and then cut out. Free machine stitching is used to finish off.

The other side of the tag is all fabric and I have used stamped images, some scrim to add texture and free machine stitching to add detail.

Stitching the tags back to back neatly was a challenge! but they turned out OK. It was a time consuming project.

I have packed these up to send and re-read the oringinal instructions - both sides were meant to be on light coloured fabric - oh dear - I really can't face doing them again - hopefully the recipients will like them!

Art!

I finally have something worth blogging. Creativity has been a little slow lately but these experiments with oiled paper which I made for a swap turned out quite well. I have used ordinary cheap copy paper and coloured it with spray inks in the first two pictures and with Brusho watercolours for the third. The Brusho sheet was stamped prior to colouring with Stazon ink using some floral stamps from The Artistic Stamper. The papers were then coated with oil (extra virgin olive oil in this case). This is worked into the paper by crumpling it over and over. It should then take an hour or so to dry, however I used far too much oil and the paper remained very oily so I put it between sheets of newspaper and ironed it a number of times with a hot iron until the oil was mostly removed. The results were a fabric like paper that took stitch beautifully. The green paper has Mistyfuse ironed onto it to give a black cobwebby effect but it is hard to pick up in the picture. I have made an ATC with each piece and have treated the paper exactly like fabric, backing it with felt before machining.