Painting on Fabric with StencilGirl® Stencils

Hello StencilGirl® fans! I’m Laura Fraedrich and I’m thrilled to be here on the blog to show you a recent piece I did with my George stencil. 

I have always loved fabric and have an extensive collection of it that keeps growing and growing. The funny thing is that I can’t sew to save my life. Many people have tried to teach me and are amazed at my lack of talent behind a sewing machine. I had an easier time learning organic chemistry in collage than I do trying to thread one of those things. I have major respect for anyone that knows how to operate a machine and create beautiful artwork with it because I am definitely not one of those people. Therefore I am left with piles of fabric that I don’t have much use for, unless I get out some paints and other supplies that I’m much more comfortable using and turn the fabric into a piece of artwork that can be framed and hung on the wall! 

For this piece, I used a black Jacquard Tee Juice marker to color in the spaces of my stencil, then used it to draw the firefly, clouds and mushrooms. I used Marabu Aqua Inks and a brush to paint the sky and grass, then used Posca markers to color the dog, firefly, mushrooms and clouds. I felt it needed some bling so I grabbed my Pentel Sparkle Pop gel pens (my new favorite pens) and added some glitter. Lastly, I drew some dots and highlights using my Uniball Signo white gel pen. I found a really cool double circle mat at Allard’s Art which completed my piece. 

Here is a close up pic where you can see some of the glitter from the Sparkle Pops. These pens are so cool!

This piece was inspired by a dragonfly that has been hanging around my yard for the last few months. Sadly my dog George who inspired my stencil design passed away this February. The dragonfly showed up shortly after and I like to think it is a gift from George to let me know he’s still with me. I miss him terribly, but am so happy that his spirit will continue to live on through my stencil design!

Happy Arting!
Laura

Circuit Board Journal Quilts with StencilGirl® Stencils by Frieda Oxenham

Every year Grosvenor Shows organizes a Journal Quilt Competition where every participant is asked to contribute 2 A4 sized Journal Quilts. For 2020 the theme is Connections. That made me think about the different way humans now communicate with each other compared to times gone by. Mostly people met in person in the past, then came letters and finally the phone. Now we all have a wide variety of computerized devices to keep in touch.  Whether you use a computer, laptop, tablet or phone they all use circuit boards to keep us connected! So they became my inspiration for the journal quilts.

Here is how I made them:

1.      Using plain white fabric tear it into roughly A4 or American letter sized pieces.

2.      With an 8 x 10” gel plate add color to the pieces using either one color or a mixture of color on your plate. You can also take partial prints and gradually color your sheets that way. I used So Soft fabric paint for this step and set it by ironing.

3.      Now again add color to your plate, one color for each print. I used Colourcraft Opaque fabric paint in various colors for this and also one blue metallic one. Put one of the following stencils on your plate and then pull the print onto your sheets from step 2: large stencil from March 2018 StencilClub , large stencil from October 2016, large stencil from October 2014 StencilClub, Ancient Marks and Buildings. As I’m using fabric paint I set it by ironing. You can skip this step if you use acrylics.

4.      I’m aiming to make 2 A4 sized pieces but made approx. 25 sheets during step 2 and 3 to give me plenty of choice for the next step.

5.      Cut up the pieces into 1 1/2” strips. I used a rotary cutter and mat for this step, but you can also use scissors.

6.      Cut 2 pieces of wool felt about 1” larger on all sides than the size you want the finished piece to be (A4 in my case). I am using one piece of black felt for one of my pieces and a piece of red for the other.

7.      Cut pieces of double sided adhesive sheet (such as WonderUnder) to match the felt in size and fuse one side to the felt. Remove the paper layer so that the adhesive side is exposed on top of the felt.

8.      Pin strips (from step 5) at the top of the felt, running vertically next to each other, then weave in strips horizontally going under and over the vertical strips, alternating over and under  in each new row of strips. Once you’re happy with the weaving, adhere permanently to the felt by ironing following the manufacturer’s instructions.

9.      Layer up the woven pieces with a background fabric. Pin together.

10.  Machine quilt the pieces using straight stitching with a walking foot on your machine (if you have one). I used red thread on one piece and blue on the other and crosshatched doing the vertical lines first and then the horizontal ones.

11.  Cut down the pieces to the desired size, A4 in my case.

12.  Add binding to each piece. I added red to the red machine quilted piece and blue to the other.

13.  Now bead along all the different shapes on your pieces. I used a mix of size 15 and size 11 seed beads and also added bugle beads to make each piece look even more like a circuit board.

© Frieda Oxenham 2019. To see more of Frieda's work, please visit her BLOG.

Carry It: Starry Night Tote Bag by Katie Lamb

Hello!

Learn how to create this simple tote bag using fabric paints and StencilGirl(R) stencils. These bags are great to use for gifts.

I used the Second Star to the Right & Straight on 'till Morning StencilClub Set by Mary Nasser. (You get to keep the cut-outs too which is great for journaling.) 

I started off by securing the stencil to a cotton bag with tape, The I used gold fabric paint and dabbed it over the stencil.

Use a mixture of colors and try to mix the colors up. Use the small stars to fill in the gaps between the larger stars.

Once the paint has dried, iron over the reverse side to set it correctly or as instructed.

Then take the Night Sky Mini Stencil and dab over the whole bag with silver fabric paint.  Finish off by setting the fabric paint with an iron.

Thank you for visiting!

Katie Lamb

Life in a Snapshot

Painting on Fabric with StencilGirl® Stencils!

Almost everything you can do on paper you can also do on fabric and I wanted to experiment a bit more with layering paints on fabric this month.  I’m very happy with the resulting piece of cloth but haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do with it and I’m leaving it up to you to decide for yourself. You could make it into a wall hanging simply by framing, or you could layer it up with batting and a backing fabric, hand or machine quilt it and then make it into a hanging. Beading would also be a good option.  The resulting piece could become the cover for a notebook or an art journal!

Here is my process step-by-step:

1.      Cut a piece of white cotton to the required size. I wanted 4 x 6 squares and the gelli plate I used is 3” square i.e. size 12 x 18” finished, so I cut my fabric 14 x 20”. I put the piece of cotton on a table with multiple sheets of newsprint underneath to make a good printing surface. Secure your piece of fabric to the sheet underneath it with masking tape.

2.      Mount your gelli plate to a perplex stamp holder (it will cling very well).  I am using a 3 x 3” square gelli plate.

  Add paint with a brayer to your plate and stamp square onto your fabric.

Make sure to clean your plate after each color change. I had a journal to hand to clean both brayer and plate after each printing and ended up with a good background for art journaling.

I used So Soft fabric paint which is a dedicated paint for fabric. Fabric paints are much more transparent than usual acrylics but you can just as easily do this step with transparent acrylics. The transparency is important for the layering effect.

3.      Repeat step 2 using contrasting colors on each square and putting down a stencil on the square before over stamping with the gelli plate. Use stencils with a small pattern. The stencils I used were: small stencil from May 2016 StencilClub, the small stencil from July 2014 Club, the small one from June 2018 Club,  small stencil March 2015 Club as well as stencils S371 Past Paper and S372 Brick Factory

4.      Repeat step 2 but this time using a small 3” circular gelli plate and putting the center of the circle plate where 4 squares meet.

5.      Repeat step 4 but this time use opaque paint in black and white (I used Titanium White and Mars Black from Golden) and put stencil S631 Spiral Petals down on the circles before stamping with the 3” circular gelli plate.

© Frieda Oxenham 2019. To see more of Frieda's work, please visit her BLOG.