Texture Plate to Fabric Design

This is one of the texture plates that I used with the gelli plate written about on my last post. I wasn't overly keen on the fabric I produced but I do love the look of this texture plate.

And it did inspire me to create a repeating fabric..

and another..

this is the same as the first one with altered colours.

I think I prefer it in pink.

Small Zipped Pouches

Two more small pouches, these have zip fastenings.

On the top one I have used some hand printed fabric, this was hand printed onto vintage spotty fabric. I made a texture printing plate from some ready cut foam flowers found in a kiddies craft pack - ie stick them to cardboard, I blogged about it in May. I hand embroidered parts of the fabric.

The pouch below is made up of vintage fabrics and crazy patchwork. I was giving my sister a lesson [the blind leading the blind is the expression that comes to mind] on crazy patchwork - I pinned and she stitched. I think I am improving my technique.

Pink Book

My new book, the pink one. I thought a heart shape would make a change and I have used book rings to hold the pages together.

The front is covered with vintage fabrics, reversed applique.

I actually made a trouser suit in this fabric when I was a teenager [flower power was the rage, showing my age, eh?] I used the leftover scraps for the book [and other things]

The inside cover - this is hand painted and stamped paper [a handmade rolling stamp]. The butterflies and dotty bits were found in a magazine.

I made the decoration on this page with texture plates made from textured wallpaper [I blogged about it on the 17th]. The trim down the centre was a gift from a friend [it was actually a big square of sticky backed paper, I cut a section off to make the trim]. Three check buttons with hanging threads and a recycled metal flower with gem.

All the inner pages have been stitched around the edges - each page is back to back with another page, which hides any messy bits underneath. I found glue was not strong enough to keep the pages together but the stitching does.

This mum page is on the other side of the one above. Also textured art work, some in smaller pieces which have been zigzagged stitched together like crazy patchwork . There is a painted ATC with decorative machine stitching. The fabric flower with beads was from a previous project and the mum letters were cut from a greetings card.

Handmade Texture Plates

We have been decorating recently and we got lots of samples of wallpapers because we couldn't agree on one. I thought I should use the samples in some way so I have made texture plates out of the textured ones. [we chose a patterned wallpaper for the walls in the end]

Basically I stuck pieces of wallpaper to card. Below are some of the papers I made using the plates. Recycled laser prints - the paper is thin and started curling up but they will be used for collage.

I made the first texture plate on day 2 of 30daysofcreativity.

Handmade Texture Plates

I was sorting through a craft drawer the other day and came across a packet of dry spaghetti. You may wonder why a packet of spaghetti was in a craft drawer? I had put it there a couple of years ago as it was out of date [2008 - my husband doesn't like pasta so it never got eaten] as I thought it may have potencial craft wise. I made a stamp or texture plate with it, could be used either from above or below. [The purple square in the photo above] I glued it to a piece of wood with evo-stik impact [from the pound shop]. I thought  had better use a strong glue as spaghetti is quite delicate. The samples are fabric but it could be used with paper.

Also from the pound shop was a packet of foam flower and butterfly shapes. I have made stamps and rolling stamps from foam shapes before but this time I thought I would make a texture plate. I just used card for these, I sometimes find bendy texture plates quite useful. The shapes didn't have a sticky side so I covered the card with double sided sticky tape [also pound shop] and stuck them to that. This of course left sticky areas between the shapes so on the first plate I painted over the whole lot with acrylic paints and let it dry. I don't know if I didn't leave it long enough to set but I found that some of the first paint came off when I used the plate. The plate is on the left and fabric samples on the right.

On the next plate I shook on a little talcum powder on the sticky areas and that seemed to work just fine.

The plate is on the left and quick paper samples on the right.

Recycled Printed Wipes

The other day I spent some time experimenting with some recycled face wipes I'd been saving. After washing them I put them in a bath of tea, but they just looked a bit drab so I thought I would print on them. I used some old screen printing paints, some heavy bodied A>2 chroma acrylics, and ordinary acrylics. The pattern was made on the top four by laying the wipe on a wallpaper texture plate. [textured wallpaper stuck to a thick card/wood base]. If it didn't look to good I went over it with another colour.

The leaf designs below were made with a shop bought plastic texture plate.

and the squiggles too

the bottom two - the lines were made using corrugated card then a flower stamp on top. The wavy lines below - this was a hand made stamp from fun foam stuck to polystyrene.

Now what shall I do with them?

More Sketchbook Doodles and Texture Plate

More doodles from sketchbook 14

The two above were drawn with pens and brush pens, for the one below I used paints as well. I also used a wallpaper texture plate to print to start with. [blue paint]

To make a texture plate simply glue a piece of textured wallpaper to board as shown below. Apply paint and then put your paper on top and press down with a roller to transfer the design. 

This is a print from the texture plate

Fabric Printing Workshop & Sketchbook Challenge

I got together with some friends for a fabric printing session. I used water soluble pencils and crayons, chalk pastels and emulsion paint, some marks were drawn freehand, some with a handmade stencil and some using texture plates. 

To fix onto the fabric we used screen print binder applied using a screen print screen and squeegee, then iron fixed and rinsed. You can see what happens if the binder is not applied properly [below]

The printing was inspired by watching the dvd of Kerr Grabowski [deconstructed screen printing]

I've been sewing!!, I shall show you the results tomorrow [if I get the photos done]

I've done another couple of drawings for the Sketchbook Challenge - Everyday Items