Birthday Bag

I recently needed a birthday gift.  I love handmade bags, especially these totes that will fold up and tuck into a handbag, ready to whip out when needed. I hadn't painted one in a while, so thought it would be a nice gift to make. 

I started by making a calico bag, though you could buy one. 

I popped some cardboard inside the bag to protect the back, then I marked out a panel and painted it with White and fabric medium mixed. 

All paints are PaperArtsy Fresco Chalk. 

Next I added blocks of other colours, all mixed with fabric medium, I used old discontinued colours to try and use them up. Smoked Paprika, Sky, Spanich Mulberry, Jade and Prawn. 

I added a little Banana to brighten some areas, then used a brayer to add White. Over this I stamped the text from EDY17 using Plum Archival ink. I also added the hanging beads using Marlin. 

Then some stencilling of the circles from PS031 using Jade, plus another layer of White. 

I finger painted a little Sky, Smoked Paprika and Banana in places, then used sequin waste to add more stencilling using Spanish Mulberry. 

Then another layer of brayered White. 

All these layers are very thin, and allow you to build up depth and dimension without obliterating the colours beneath. 

I stamped the Cherry Blossom tree from EDY19 twice at each side, using a piece of paper as a mask to make sure the trees were in the right place. The tree stems weren't quite long enough, so I lengthened them just with a piece of plastic and Black paint. 

I added dots of Prawn to the trees, and then stamped the dotty circles from EDY17 using Cornflower Archival ink. 

Finally I added some lines of black paint and some circles of white with a lid. 

That was the background finished, so now to add the border to ground the panel. I used the torn paper edge stencil PS031 and Pea Coat paint, blending the paint inwards with a soft brush. 

To embellish the panel I painted some flowers and leaves onto cotton fabric.  The frilly flowers from EDY18 are in Bougainvillea, Lilac and Captain Peacock. The Poppy from EDY19  is in Smoked Paprika and Cherry Red. the three stems are done with a variety of greens on each one to add interest. 

I also painted more fabric with Sky and Pea Coat for the text from EDY17. 

All the bits were glued on, and then the text panel was stitched around. 

Here it is finished, I am very pleased with it and hope the birthday girl likes it too. 

Darcy x

It's Crafting Time

This past weekend I have been down in Cambridge with Nina from It's Crafting Time I travelled down by train on Saturday, arriving around lunchtime. My bags were super heavy so i grabbed a taxi from the train station and had him drop me off near Argos where I popped in and bought some 'wheels' for my bags.. Then it was a breeze wandering around the town , having lunch and enjoying the sunshine. 

Just after lunch Nina came to pick me up and we went to Harston Hall This is where It's Crafting time will be holding workshops and having their pop up shop. Check out their website HERE to see what dates and teachers they have coming up. 

So we arrived at the hall to find Jo Firth Young in full swing with her afternoon workshop. 

the lovely Nina 

and here is the fab pop up shop,, seriously well stocked, paints, inks, paper pads. stamps, stencils and much more.. 

always nice to see my stamps on sale.. 

I set up the samples that I had brought with me.. 

So that people that were popping in could have a look while the workshops were running. 

Once Jo finished her class we had a clear up and then went straight into my evening workshop. We were making this fan and case.. 

We worked on both things at once, here you can see the cases and fan papers being decorated.. 

it was a late finish and by the time we had eaten.... pasta followed by cheesecake, it was an early night. Bright and early on Sunday we were off back to the hall to start the morning workshop. This time we were making a memory book. 

Here are some of the book covers being made.. 

At lunchtime we stopped and everyone had chance to go shopping for supplies, then we began the afternoon class. this time we were decorating a bag panel.. 

Straight to it getting the first layer of colour down onto the fabric.. 

our handy dandy drying station.. 

Adding some vibrant stencilling.. 

our drying station also doubled as an embossing station, where everyone got to try out embossing onto fabric. 

At the end of the day Jo just had time to stitch her panel to the bag. 

Sally did an awesome job of ironing on the backing fabrics and counting out beads.. 

Nina was just being Nina lol

Nearly all done, just a bit of beading and some glueing left to do.. 

Thanks to everyone who came along, hope to see you all again soon. If people send me finished photos I will add them here. 

Darcy x

EDIT.. Margaret sent me a pic to say her bag was finished.. 

New Stamps. Duct Tape Bag

Hi everyone, here is another of my launch samples. So I was looking for a new substrate to work on.. and into my head popped Duct Tape... I had no idea if this could be painted? I grabbed a roll that had been sitting in my craft room 

The way to creat duct tape 'fabric' is to lay down strips of one colour, slight overlapping and with the sticky side up. Then lay down strips in a second colour on top, again overlapping. This gives you a sturdy 'fabric' and all the sticky is trapped between the 2 layers.. 

So I stuck 2 short pieces sticky side to sticky side, and tried out some paint. The 2 on the far left, one opaque and one translucent are painted directly onto the tape. As you can see they scratched off once dry. The 2 in the middle are painted over a coat of matte medium, and they resisted scratching really well. The 2 on the far right were painted over clear gesso, and again they scratched off. 

So now I had done my experiment, I decided to try and make a bag. I worked out roughly what size I wanted the bag to be, added a little width for seams, and doubled the length. 

I then laid out the strips of green duct tape, and covered those with strips of white tape. I folded the piece in half and stapled the sides, these were then covered in more green tape. I folded in the corners of the bottom to make a 'box bottom', and again covered the folds with more tape. Finally I added the handles, and the fastening strap, every join covered with more tape. This is what I ended up with. 

As you can see the green side becomes the lining and the white it the outer. It stands up alone because of the 'box bottom'  I then gave just the white areas 2 coats of matte medium to prep it. 

I then added Beach Hut to each side, followed by Inky Pool on the outer areas. 

Next I packed the bag with books, this squared it off so that I had a flat and stable surface to work on. I then brayered on some Orchid and Pumpkin Soup. I like how the brayer picked up the stripes of the joins in the tape. 

I then used Little Black Dress and Inky Pool to stencil some letters and words. The word stencils are from Seth Apter. 

I added a little Snowflake with the brayer, then stencilled spots with Orchid, once that was dry I bumped the stencil and redid them in Snowflake. 

Next I added random stamping, using all the text stamps from my new collection. 

Finally I used my 'van gogh' inspired stamp, from EDY13I wanted just the dashed outer rings, so I masked off the centre. 

This is how the front looks now. The small white square is velcro for the fastening strap. 

I added 2 coats of satin glaze at this point. 

I made another piece of duct tape 'fabric', again green tape stuck to white tape. I made a rough template of my intended flower, so that I knew how big to make the fabric. 

I painted the fabric with matte medium first, then with Snowflake. next I painted with Beach Hut and Inky Pool. I also make a smaller piece , painted it with matte medium then Orchid. on this piece I stamped the triangle leaf from EDY14. on a leftover scrap I painted Pumpkin Soup and then stamped the lower part of the birdhouse from EM15.

I then built up my flower using the large head and leaf from EDY12. 

I added details with liquid pearls, and black and white posca pens, and added 2 coats of satin glaze. 

I layered the small flower onto the large one and then added a piece of broken jewellery. I hand stitched between the metals of the jewellery and through both layers of the duct tape fabric. 

Going back to the birdhouse, I folded over the duct tape and stitched around the house ( using my machine) Just before I stitched across the bottom I filled it with a little polyester stuffing. 

I then used pinking shears to cut close to the stitching, I punched a hole at the top and added a black eyelet, then added 2 coats of satin glaze. 

I threaded through a piece of blue leather thong, and tied that around one of the handles. 

Here is the front of the bag, with large flower stitched into place. I stitched through the flower, right through to the inside of the bag. once done, I added another piece of the green tape over the stitches inside the bag. 

Now for the back of the bag. As I did the front, I made notes so that I could decorate the back in almost the same way. I followed my own steps, brayering and stencilling. 

I then bumped the dots, added stamping and finally added the leaf from EDY14. i painted some tissue paper with Orchid, stamped the leaf and added a longer stem with a posca pen to some of them. i cut the out and attached with matte medium. 

I then gave all of the painted area on the back, 2 coats of satin glaze. This is to seal everything in place, and also to add a bit of sheen. The unpainted tape(the green one) is very shiny and of course the paint has made the white areas very matte... so adding some satin glaze brings the two closer together in appearance. 

Here is the back... just as pretty as the front.. 

and one more of the front. I can't wait to use this in the summer. 

Hope you enjoyed that, why don't you make something from duct tape, I would love to see what you make. 

All my stamps are available now from your favourite PaperArtsy retailer. 

I will be back soon with another sample. 

Darcy x