Fabric Book Covers

I'm becoming one with my sewing machine apparently.

A while back I read this fun article in Sew Somerset (Summer 2008 issue), a magazine I had been craving for months (finally bought it.) The artist Roxanne Padgett was tired of not having her art supplies with her at all times and decided to make a cute art-studio-on-the-go.

It inspired me to make something for my daughter. A book cover for homeschool. The cover is layered fabric. The inside has a pocket for pencils/pens. Surprisingly I did not have any polka dot fabric or purple fabric for that matter (my dd wanted some purple in it), so I painted polka dots with acrylic paint/textile medium mix onto yellow fabric.




Stay tuned to the Collage Contessa Etsy Shop over the coming weeks. Now that school is running smoothly, the shop will be collecting the fruits of my labors. Including more book covers I'm working on. If you're interested in a custom cover, holler with your color choices and I'll get you a price and time frame it will be ready. Great Christmas gift.

Talent & Ability - Creative Therapy

This week's Creative Therapy catalyst is 'What talent or ability do you wish you had?' Go on over and play along! (Image is from Altered Pages.)



Confidence. Complete confidence. Friends and family would say I’m pretty confident and I’d agree for the most part. Yet there are those times when I question everything. Am I a good enough wife, a competent mother and homeschool teacher, a dedicated Christian, an interesting person & caring friend, a loving daughter, a talented artist? Usually I believe I am but there is that little negative bug in the back of my brain that sometimes says ‘but what if you aren’t and you’re just fooling yourself?’ I hate self doubt. I would love to have the ability to be completely confident in my life, my choices, myself; with no doubt that I’m doing everything the way I should and could. But I guess that touches on the ‘perfection’ level. No one is perfect, only God. I firmly believe that he only gives us what we can handle so I think if I have complete confidence in him, the negative Nellies in my brain will leave me alone. It’s a constant struggle though. We all want to measure up. Believing in yourself brings the confidence I think. I’ll keep working on that.



Technique Highlight:
I took a piece of cheesecloth, ripped holes in it, sprayed one side with repositionable adhesive and laid it over a primed canvas. I dripped alcohol inks on the cheesecloth, sometimes moving the ink around with a wet brush or water pen. I also painted with white gesso (white paint will do) through some of the cloth as well. I dried it a bit with the heat gun and then pulled off the cheesecloth. Perfect background. For the chipboard letters, I quickly brushed them with aqua and olive green alcohol inks. After they were dry, I took a baroque stamp on a wheel, rolled it through paint and then rolled it across the letters for the pink swirls.

Feature Friday!

Well, no Feature Friday was done last week. I guess the world didn't come to an end.

2 week's ago, we did the fabric painting homeschool art project. It inspired me to go looking for other fabric painters. Many use a Gocco machine or commercial screenprinting apparatus. I also found several that hand paint or 'hand print' (some from stencils, others from carved stamps) like we did. Here is a favorite handprinting Etsy seller of mine:

LEILILALOO

Art Store
Prints of her Art Store
Blog

Hand printed Fabric





She also prints gorgeous ribbon you can use in your next project!



Not only does she paint the fabric/ribbon, she makes jewelry, toys, wall ornaments, lavender sachets, tea towels and more!






She has 2 stores actually; her regular art shop, prints of her art and a blog! I can see I'll be running to her store for some Christmas gifts!