Valentine's mixed media heart

I was at the thrift store and they had a bunch of these decorative hearts that are meant to be used for wall decorations or fake flowers or some such. The sides taper to a point so things can be put inside. I thought I would take them apart and use the hearts for some mixed media pieces.


The finished samples below are using this one. I used nail polish remover to remove the pink paint.

I also have one like this. I am using it to show how I disassembled the containers.

 I used metal snips to cut the sides, trying to get to the tip on each side.

Then I bent it back and forth so the front section and the back section would separate. I used pliers to grab the edge that I had just cut and moved the metal back and forth to pop the welding attachment to the face piece.  On the gold tones ones, I was just able to kind of tug and roll the metal at the welding spot and it would come unattached. Of course, there are about five welding spots on both sides, so after a while my arms would get tired and I would need to take a break.  I plan on bringing these for the Colorado Mixed Media February meeting for us to use in a project, so I had five gold boxes to break apart. The white one did not have any rough edges after removing the sides. The gold ones had a small lip which I hammered down to the back side.

I had picked up some Vintag Patina over Christmas, so I thought I'd try it out.

 

 The bottle says to apply with a brush, but I don't think these are water soluble and did not want to ruin a brush. I used cotton disposable makeup swaps and blotted the ink on.  I applied the green, then did a blotchy blue application.

 I then took this sanding block and sanded some of the finish off to give it a distressed look.

I added some lace, a piece of decorative paper on mat board, a chipboard letter "L", and stenciled "ove".

 On the next one, I used alcohol inks.

I used too much on the first attempt and the ink was thick and gunky looking.

I used rubbing alcohol to remove most of the ink, and did a lighter application. I added some do-dads and plan to add a bit more as well.

More wet felting

Layer one, white roving in one direction

Layer two, white roving running perpendicular to the first.

Colored roving, and some twisted wool roving.

After felting!  I think I will needle felt some more twisted yarn on top so it's more three dimensional.The bottom is a dark plum color, it is hard to tell from this photo!

Printing on fabric using Bubble Jet Set.

 I've been wanting to try using Bubble Jet Set to print on fabric using my inkjet printer.

I made this cool pattern using a Citrasolv technique and bubble wrap with National Geographic magazine.  I scanned it into my printer so I could print it on the fabric. I also used some photographs I had taken this year: wisteria, poppies, a winery, and a snow scene.

I was sad to read the bottle and see that it is for use with cottons and silks, as I have a ton of polyester sheer. Oh well. I dug up some silk organza, a small silk piece from a previous marbling experiment, some ice dyed cotton, and some white muslin.

I soaked the fabric in the solution for 5 minutes. I squeezed out my fabric, but re-reading the instructions, it says to not wring, oops. It didn't seem to affect my results.  I put these outside on a clothesline to dry. I ironed the fabric to freezer paper and cut them to 8 1/2" x 11". I then printed onto the fabrics.

After waiting an hour, I removed the freezer paper and rinsed these in the sink with some Synathrapol detergent.  I then rolled them up in a towel to dry.

Here are my results.  I really like the prints on the silk organza. Unfortunately many of the organza pages got smushed up in my printer, and jammed it and gave me organza with lots of black ink yuck on it.

Pretty cool!

Dyeing wool yarn with Jacquard acid dyes

 I bought a couple skeins of this loopy wool for $1.85/ea. Hurrah! It was a bland tannish grayish color, and needed a dye job.

I soaked the yarn in water, squeezed the water out, then splashed some white vinegar on it. i mixed up some Jacquard acid dyes and used squirt bottles to apply them to my yarn. I left them in saran wrap for about a half hour to help the colors sink in and blend.  I then put them in ziploc bags and steamed the bags in my steamer dedicated to dyeing. I also included some silk/wool blend yarn as well. 

Again, I used too much dye and they ended up really dark. The time that I let the colors blend ended up with one color overpowering the other. The green at top left was supposed to be chartreuse and turquoise. The knitted section was to be green and golden yellow, but is orange. The red was supposed to be red and yellow. They still look really cool.  I had a little left-over dye and put some wool roving in with a mix of all the left-over dye. It has a nice variegated look.

Coloring fabric with Sharpie markers and rubbing alcohol

I had bought a whole bunch of polyester sheer fabric and thought I would play with drawing on some of it with Sharpie markers and using rubbing alcohol to have the colors spread.

I forgot to take a picture of my fabric after drawing with the Sharpie markers. I used three layers of sheers and one layer of a solid white polyester (was the lining of some drapes).

After drawing with the Sharpies, I started applying the rubbing alcohol by squirting it with a spray bottle but it wasn't spreading the color much. So I switched to a pipette. I wanted to abstract my marks so I kind of scrunched the fabric to make hills and valleys.  This top piece shows my original patterns pretty clearly. Turquoise circles, red jaggedy lines, blue semi-circles, orange squiggly lines, green diagonal hashes, and black "X"s. I also did some squiggly lines in gold leaf pen, but they did not spread and did not sink into any of the other layers.

Layer 2

Layer 3

Layer 4 (solid - not sheer)

Detail of one of the sheers

I used so much rubbing alcohol during this process, that it was seriously stinky.  It can make a person light-headed if there isn't adequate ventilation. Next time I will do it outside as I didn't even think the exhaust fan I was using was adequate.

My plan is to layer these on a cotton fabric and sew them together on my sewing machine with cotton thread. Then I am going to use a heat tool to burn some of the polyester away.  I will be doing that outside, I have a fear of fire!

Wet felting a landscape

I had asked for Moy Mackay's book on Felt & Stitch for my birthday. It is even more lovely than it looked on the Amazon site. I have a ton of wool roving, although it is amazing how much white I have gone through since it is the base for all the pieces.

I forgot to take step by step photos. I put down two base layers of white roving,  the second layer is perpendicular to the first.  I then used colored roving to "make" my picture.  I used blue roving and some blue silk hanky (the darker blue) for the sky. I added some green tencel or bamboo to the green roving for the grass. I don't know what kind of wool the black was, the fibers were really smooth, maybe it was merino? The reds are a hodge podge, I had bought some fiber packs that had curly wool, angelina etc mixed in it, as well as adding wool and more angelina from my stash. There are at least 6 different fibers in the red section. I did include some Nylon dyed fibers, but they were molting off the piece when I was felting it.

Here it is prior to felting. 

Moy used a bamboo mat and garden screening for felting, but I used bubble wrap and fine tulle.I place tulle over the whole thing. I poked holes in the waterbottle lid and just used 1/4" of dish soap with 1/2 bottle of hot water.

Moy used a ribbed rolling pin, but I used this firm plastic roller someone gave me (for polymer clay?).  After the rolling pin, the whole thing gets rolled up and rolled a lot, rotated 90 degrees and rolled, again, and again, and again.

Here it is after the whole felting process. I plan to do some machine and hand stitching, as shown in the book.  It has a rippled texture on the whole piece that I don't quite like. Does anyone know how to prevent this or fix it?  Maybe it was the bubble wrap. I will try to find a bamboo mat and see if that prevents it on the next one. I will try to take some better pictures next time the sun is out.

I also did some cherry blossoms. This one did not turn out as well, but I think with some machine and hand stitching I can give it a wow factor. I feel if I had used a blue sky it would have had more pop.

I cut cherry blossom shaped out of roving, but they lose there edges after felting.

 The ripples are driving me crazy. I need to find a way to unripple it.

I plan on doing some smaller abstract pieces next week, if I can find space to do it as we are renovating the kitchen. Eeek!

Zip 37 Gallery Mixed Media show, last weekend and an article on the show

This is the last weekend of the Mixed Media show at Zip 37 gallery if you get the chance to go and see it.

Here is an article about the show, and Bobbi Walker's process for jurying the submissions.