Making Fabric Paper

MarveLes Art Studios Blogs, Tutorial 2 Comments

Thank you to Beth who left a comment yesterday asking for more details… I hope this post will help you out… but I welcome any questions you have! 


First things FIRST.  Lay down a plastic covering on the work service; laying out your muslin and items you want to use in the collage.
The muslin can be any shape; small, squarish…or round if you’d like!
Notice I left the frayed edge (on the left) of the muslin.
By the way, these are items I put in the art quilt “Katie Cutie”.

As you can see… a napkin, doillie, pattern piece, a hand-written note, candy foil wrapper, miscellaneous text, pattern paper, torn wrapping paper, and tissue!
(the list is endless!)
I mix up 50% water/50% tacky glue (I use Aleene’s – Elmers would also work).

  It’s kind of sloppy-good – no need to measure; I literally just ‘slap it on’ with a cheapo brush, or whatever you have on hand.  Don’t buy something new or good quality… in case the glue mixture dries before it’s cleaned. (uhh… oops!)

Next: you will lay down your (pre-planned) miscellaneous ephemera items on the ‘primed’ glue-muslin layer. It will dry fairly quickly, so you don’t want to take too much time deciding what to use.
Note: I know some artists like to use various gel mediums… as far as I know, either will work just fine… (but I’m not an expert – I’m just a hands-on, let’s try this type of girl!  I’ve only used tacky glue so far. 

Above: place the white craft tissue paper (it’s sturdier than your average gift-wrapping type) onto the muslin surface; having cut or torn it  into smaller segments from the package. Overlap them a bit as you lay them down on the muslin-textured base.   Then add your color; I use acrylic paint, watering it down as the notion strikes me! 
“Give Thanks” paper quilt

If you find the top tissue layer isn’t sticking, gently add a bit more glue/water mixture to the top of the tissue  Than add your paint… watered down as you desire (add a bit of glue to it if you want and this has worked well for me)

AND.. if you ‘over-do’ it… you get some fabulous wrinkles or perhaps the tissue ‘wears’ away a bit!  No worries! (See ‘Dancing With Jack’) 

Here is the final dried, layered base… notice there is a transparent coating of acrylic paint, watered down significantly… but this is certainly a personal preference!  See an earlier piece I did, (below) in which the paint was mostly opaque… and I liked that too… but it does cover up more of the things you laid down… just a different style, really.
Now is the time to add further embellishments… fused flowers were added after the paint had dried.

Let it dry… it will curl.  
Once dry, iron it (into submission).
Stabilize it, bat it, back it.
Stitch it.

Quilt it.  Bind it!
Pictured left is one of my first fabric paper quilts.  These are the items added after paint was dry.  
It also shows where I had alot more color than water… a happy accident, and ugh – I muddied the colors a bit.  So it goes; and it turned out better than I had expected. Opaque or transparent… it’s all good!  
 After all the tissue paper layers and paint had dried… hand-painted accents in a silver metallic pen are very fun!  I had leftover fusings… angelina fibers, silk roving… added decorative stitches…& a beautiful hand-dyed yarn — couched on with my #43 free motion foot!  See more about it here and here.
 Be original, and have fun with your own personal ‘stuff’, and make it unique to you.
AND… if you’d like to know more, go to Terri Stegmiller’s blog and  the 3 Creative Studios website… (great resource!)  She wrote a book: “Creative Paper Quilts” (which I just discovered today, because she left me a comment-thank you Terri!) You can purchase it from Amazon.com too.  I hope you will visit her blog, which I enjoy LOTS. She has such great style, and fabulous, colorful inspiration for you!  Another resource is a book from Beryl Taylor: Mixed Media Explorations.
Finished!

Comments 2

  1. I so enjoy making fabric paper. Your finished result here has such lovely colors in it. Thank you so much for mentioning my book.

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