PaperWhimsy Design Team - Rande Hanson

Inspiration Starter - A Little Felting

This is another little fabric collage that I incorporated a little bit of needle felting.  First I used the hand felter to attach the houndstooth fabric to the brown felt.  This is a great way to attach fabric without having to sew by hand or machine. I also made the little nest using the hand felter.  First I cut a small circle of felt, laid some brown roving on it, and felted.  Then I laid several different fibers around the edge of the circle.  Here is where you can really play.  I used different colors of brown, and even some eyelash fibers.  I felted these fibers very lightly, and then felted more in the center to create a tighter felted area for the glass bead eggs.  This felting will probably find it's way into a lot of my fabric collages.  Have you tried it?  I'd love to hear and see what you are doing!

Paper Doll Story Boxes

Paperwhimsy supplies used:

Wooden Shadow Box Trays

Basic Grey LilyKate Paper

German Scrap Borders

Wool Roving

Collage images from sheets #86, #137 and #150

Select your shadow box and a Paperwhimsy image that will be used for the paper doll.  Keep in mind, you will only need an image from the waist up.  Also select your background papers.

Paint the box in a coordinating color to the background papers chosen.  When dry, use a thinned coat of cream colored acrylic paint, and wash over the color in the box.  Wipe off excess, before dry.  While you have the cream colored paint, wash a light coat over the German Scrap trim, and wipe excess off.

Using LilyKate paper, select two coordinating patterns, cut to the size of the box. Tear one of the papers for interest.  Glue papers to the back of the box.

Attach the German scrap trim to the upper and lower edges of the box.

Trim Paperwhimsy image, and place in the box where you will want to mount it.  With a scrap piece of paper, draw a skirt pattern that will fit inside the box from the waist of the doll to the bottom of the box.  This will be your skirt pattern.  Take the skirt pattern and add ¼ inch on each side and cut pattern out of coordinating cardstock.

Using fancy tissue paper, lace, or crepe paper streamer, glue rows of ruffles to the cardstock skirt.  When glue is dried, fold over the added ¼ inch on the sides of the skirt, for dimension. 

Attach Paperwhimsy image to the skirt, at the waist.  Place in box, and decide on any additional background collage items you want to add.  Such as leaves, doilies, etc.  Also if you want to want add wings to the image, attach at this time. 

When the background is complete, attach pop up glue dots, or pieces of foam core board to the back of the paper doll, and secure in the box. 

Finish embellishing the paper doll with more lace, buttons, and ribbons.  To finish off the box, add collage items to the skirt, or have the paper doll hold something. I also added a little of that yummy wool roving to the bottom of the box to soften the collage, and make it look like the paper doll was standing in a mist.

Gold and Grunge, Valentines and Paper Dolls

  The New Year is off to a fast start.  Hard to believe it's only a month till Valentine's Day.  So time to start thinking about making something for our loved ones.  This is a collage made on a 6x6 canvas board, painted with Lumiere paint and using the new Basic Grey Stella Ruby papers, Grungeboard painted with Lumiere paints, Collage Sheet, #76, and hung the nifty little Petite Hanger.

  And a sweet Valentine card, again using Basic Grey Stella Ruby papers, Collage sheet #45, and some the new German Dresden Scallop Trim.

  And even more exciting is the new Fibre Whimsy shoppe. With just a little Roving and Clover Needle Felting Tool, you can add a felted heart to make a card really special.  Mount it on a foil frame or doilie, with a few leaves, and that's all you need!

Now the Paper Doll project.  Over the next few weeks I will be creating Whimsy paper dolls.

Using Collage Sheet #133, I created a doll mounted on a paper cone.  I wrapped several layers of crepe paper for the skirt, and added lace ribbons, rhinestones, flowers, and she is even holding a little bird.  Check back soon for more paper dolls, and tutorial.