Paper Fabric Heart Ornaments

Hello there! It's been a while!

I'm back on my blog today to offer you a fun holiday décor project. I planned this project a year ago when I was invited to do a short feature in a Christmas show for local TV. I enjoyed both the project and the actual TV-performance (although I can't stop laughing when I see or hear a recording of myself), and yesterday when I thought about the fun I had a year ago I felt it would be a shame if I didn't share the project with a wider audience. So here it is. I hope you'll like it!

Paper Fabric Heart Ornaments

You will need:

• a piece of white cotton fabric/muslin
• an assortment of thin papers (e.g. tissue paper, paper napkins, empty teabags, tissue paper that you’ve decorated yourself with permanent markers and paint)
• basic white glue + a pot for thinning the glue
• a plastic bag or Teflon sheet to work on
• a broad paint/foam brush
• embroidery thread/yarn for the hanging loop (25 cm/10”)
• glitter glue

Making the paper fabric

1. Prepare the papers by tearing or cutting them into manageable pieces (mine were about 5 cm/2” squares).
2. Thin the glue with water: about 1 part of glue to 2 parts of water.
3. Place the fabric on your work sheet and brush a generous amount of watery glue over the whole piece.
4. Arrange the paper pieces one by one on the wet fabric and brush watery glue over each piece.
5. Let the paper fabric dry flat overnight.
6. If the paper fabric has curled up while drying you can put it between two sheets of parchment paper and press it flat with a cool iron.
7. If you wish, you can decorate the paper fabric further when it’s dry: e.g. with permanent markers, acrylic paint or ink, stamps, stencils, etc.

Making the heart ornament

1. Draw your own heart, or use the template provided below and cut out four hearts in paper fabric.
2. Fold each heart in half, right sides together.
3. Spread glue on the back of one half of a heart and stick it to the back of a corresponding half of a heart. 
4. Do the same with the remaining two hearts.
5. Place a string of glue along the join of two hearts, fold the thread to form a loop and press the loop into the glue.
6. Spread glue over the back of two joined hearts and stick them to the other two joined hearts, with the loop in between.
7. Finish the edges with glitter glue as a final touch.

Have fun!

PS: Click on the label 'Paper fabric' in the cloud to the right and you will find more posts on paper fabric.

Paper Fabric Christmas Fun

One of the many materials that I enjoy working with is what I call paper fabric. It's not paper and it's not fabric, but a combination of the two. The basic technique is pretty simple: you saturate a piece of cotton with diluted PVA glue and then add papers to it. Thinner papers work best, and I like to combine papers that I've bought or found with papers that I've decorated myself.

A selection of tissue paper with stamped and hand drawn patterns

It's wise to prepare all the papers in advance, because the technique is quite messy and it's difficult to tear paper with sticky fingers...

The most difficult part is waiting for it all to dry...

A sheet of paper fabric ready to be used. It's difficult to describe: it's a bit like card stock, and a bit like artificial leather or plastic and a bit like birch bark. It's stronger than paper and you can sew it by hand or machine.

When I first started making paper fabric I used it mainly for card-making:

but later I've discovered all sorts of other uses for it. This time I set myself a challenge to use it for a variety of Christmas decorations.

I cut it into strips and made a Froebel star

As I realized that both the front and the back of the paper fabric would be visible, I painted the back with white acrylic paint. The star looks quite different when you turn it around.

I also made a woven heart basket, and realized that weaving thin strips like this is pretty challenging.

If you want to make life easier for yourself, you can skip the basket and make the heart two-dimensional instead.

This round little ornament is quick as well as cute.

But my favourite has to be the pod! (I made a pod last year too. Perhaps I should make a new one every year?)

I thought it'd be fun to make a filigree candle wrap too, but of course this is only for LED candles. I wouldn't want to start a fire!

And then I made a filigree ornament.

Finally, I made a little garland with hearts on a string

and festive bunting for the Christmas tree:

Of course you could use ordinary paper or card stock for these objects, but I think it's a lot more fun if you can use a material that you made yourself. I hope I've inspired you to make some festive decorations yourself!

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Stitched notebook

I was recently interviewed for the local newspaper about my interest in art and crafts (link), and the reporter then asked me for a simple project to share with the readers. Since I like to make my own books for art journaling, I suggested a very simple bookbinding project: a stitched notebook.

When you make your own books, you can use any paper you want for them. Pretty neat, right? Here are the instructions:

You’ll need

• paper for the pages
• material for the cover
• an awl, sharp needle or a drawing pin/thumb tack for making holes
• strong thread (e.g. waxed linen thread, buttonhole thread, beading thread or dental floss)
• a blunt tapestry needle to sew with

The pages
You can use any paper you like for the pages: e.g. copy paper, squared paper, drawing paper, watercolour paper. The thinner the paper, the more pages you will be able to fit in. Experiment to see what works. When the folded sheets are stacked inside each another, each paper will shift slightly and jut out along the outer edge. If you like, you can trim the pages after the pamphlet has been stitched, but you can also leave the edge as it is and make the cover wide enough to protect all the pages.

The cover
The cover can also be made from different materials: e.g. cardstock, fabric, felt, leather, selfmade paper-cloth. A cover made from cardstock can be strengthened by making it longer than you need and folding in flaps at either end, or by using contact paper. A fabric cover can be strengthened with another layer of fabric, fusible interfacing and a lining. Stitch and turn the cover, or simply zig zag the layers together. You could also wrap a pretty paper around the cover, or draw, paint or use stamps on it.

Method

1. Fold the papers in half and make the creases sharp.
2. Stack the pages inside each other until you have enough. This is your page block.
3. Measure your page block and make the cover a few millimetres (about 1/8”) wider than the page block on every side. Fold the cover in half.
4. Make three or five holes in the page block according to the illustration below. Measure with a ruler or eyeball it. Use paper clips if it’s difficult to keep the pages together while making the holes. Make sure the holes are exactly on the fold.
5. Place the page block inside the cover and make holes in the cover through the holes in the page block.
6. Cut a thread to measure two times the height of the book plus a little extra for tying.
7. Stitch the book according to the illustration below. Make sure you always pull in the direction of the fold when you tighten the stitches.
8. Check that the thread ends are on opposite sides of the long stitch when you return through the middle hole.
9. Knot the thread ends with a strong knot. You can also secure the knot with some glue.

3 holes vs 5 holes

Knot on the outside vs on the inside

If the thread later breaks, you can easily change it by re-stitching the book. Similarly, you can also change the pages or the cover should you want to.

I've decorated this cover with a selfmade stamp from craft foam.

This cover is made from selfmade paper-cloth.

Good luck with your book!

Fabric + Paper = Paper Fabric

I've been preparing a weekend course on how to make paper fabric and how to use it, and today I want to share some of the things I've been working on. Earlier examples of when I've played with paper fabric can be found here and here.

Here's a collection of "raw" paper fabric - that is paper fabric which hasn't been decorated with paint and stitch.

See the one in the middle, with a poppy shape? It's made with papers that I used to clean my stencils after printing poppies and fake script (for this project). Nothing goes to waste! :-)

I've made several kinds of purses, e.g.

and

The red paper fabric in the background later became a notebook cover:

By adding a bit of padding and a soft lining, you can make a cute eyeglass case:

And if you don't like sewing, cut it into strips and weave it into a little basket. The one in the background is made from birch bark, and the other one from paper fabric. Pretty neat, huh? They have a very similar feel to them.

There's just so much you can do with paper fabric! What a great way to recycle some of the paper that you have lying around the house.

Thanks for visiting my blog, and see you again soon!
- Annika

For Some of Us It's Perfectly Normal...

... to look at the baby wipe we just used to clean up our work surface after painting some paper fabric and wonder...

Could I use this for something?

I bet I could. I'll put it aside to dry, and then we'll see.

I'm dyeing to bring you more news soon!
- Annika

Purses and Pouches Galore

It seems I've been into bags, purses and pouches lately. I've produced quite a collection for different purposes, even on commission. Here are some of them.

Paper fabric purses for an upcoming mixed media class (in September):
(i Nykarleby: så håll korpgluggarna öppna för mera information, ni som bor i området!):

To create the paper fabric, I've used the methods described by Beryl Taylor in Mixed Media Explorations and Kelli Nina Perkins in Stitch Alchemy. There's more to explore, so I'm sure I'll return to this subject later in the summer.

A waist purse to hold my keys while I'm out jogging (much needed, and accomplished at last!):

A batch of coin purses to sell at a craft fair this summer (the fabrics are my own hand dyed fabrics):

 

And a pouch for smartphones, also for sale at the fair (again, my own hand dyed fabric). So far I've only managed to finish one of these, but I'm probably going to make more now that I've worked through the original construction method and made some improvements:

That's all folks! Have a great weekend, and I hope to see you again soon! - Annika