PaperWhimsy Design Team - Rande Hanson

Adirondack Color Washes and Moon Shadow Mists

  I had a chance to play and experiment with the Adirondack Color washes and Moon Shadow Mists.  Since there was more play involved I can only tell you how I played, and not the exact scientific methods I used to make the background papers.

Adirondack Color Washes

Moon Shadow Mists

  I usually cut my Watercolor Paper a little bigger than the final size, and trim the edges to size when dry.  I found I really like mixing colors, and trying for a softer more muted look.  I first covered my work area with plastic sheeting.  To get a more muted blended look, I first ran the watercolor paper under the faucet and got the entire surface wet, shaking off any excess.  I chose two or three colors to work with, and a coordinating Moon Shadow Mist.  Holding the paper upright, I sprayed the top third of the sheet, letting it run down the paper.  For a paler shade, spray lightly.  I turned the paper upside down and sprayed the second color letting it run down the page into the first color.  At this point you can spray a third color randomly.  Depending on how much contrast or blending, I may turn the paper several time to let the colors mix.  I laid the paper flat, and let dry just a few minutes, to insure the colors did not mix any more.  At this time I sprayed a light coat of the Shadow Mists.  I was mostly wanting to highlight and add a little iridescent color to the backgrounds.  In the above collage, I used eggplant and denim colorwashes with Long John's Silver shadow mists.  Here is a little closer sample.  It is very hard to photograph the ireidescent quality of the shadow mists.

Click for larger sample

    After my first sample, I became a bit braver, and cut several pieces of watercolor paper, and continued with my experiments.  Here are some more samples of the end results.  Click for a larger view of sample.

Some of the backgrounds I had when I finished "playing".

  While I had all the papers spread out on the table I thought it would be fun to see what Paperwhimsy images, and embellishments I could find for future collages.  Here's a few combinations I came up.

Some of the Paperwhimsy items I found to add to the backgrounds include:

Various German Foil Scrap

Prima China Silk Flowers

Hand-dyed Silk Ribbons

Prima Paper Roses

Velvet Leaf Sprigs

Feather Butterflies

  I'd love to hear about how you use the color washes and shadow mists.  I hope these samples will give you a few ideas, and most of all, I hope you have fun playing!

Felted and Rusty Brooches

Click on image for closer view

  After doing the brooch in my previous post, I though it might be fun to add some rusty bits and see what happens. 

Paperwhimsy items used:

Wool Roving, Needle Felting Tool and Mat

Rusty Old Bottle Caps

Rusty Ivy

Gold Metal Heart Charms

Japanese Glass Beads

Diamond Glaze

Aurora Borealis Rhinestones

Collage Images

  Start by cutting your shape out of a base fabric.  I use wool felt, but whatever is your favorite.  The circle brooch is approximately 2.75 inches in diameter.  Lay your felt piece on the felting pad and lay the roving across the base.  Make two layers, one left to right, and one top to bottom.  Use the felting tool and punch until you have a nice layer, adding till you have a good thickness.  It will need to be thick enough to sew and hold the embellishments.  Trim the excess roving along the edges.  With a 3-strand piece of coordinating embroidery floss, sew a blanket stitch around the edges. 

  For preparing the rusty bottle cap, I punched two holes in the well, using a hammer and small nail.  Place a small piece of torn lace behind the bottle cap and attach the bottle cap to the felted piece using a heavy thread through the two holes, knotting in the back.  Cut a collage image to fit in the well of the bottle cap, and spread a thin layer of diamond glaze to glue the image.  Also spread a layer of the diamond glaze over the top of the image.  For a large rhinestone, a thin layer of diamond glaze to hold the stone is all you need.  No need for another layer over the top.  Let dry before the last steps. 

  Add your rusty ivy or filigree corners with a rusty colored thread.  Sew coordinating seed beads at each of the blanket stitches along the edge.  I aged the little gold heart charms with a brown acrylic paint, and sewed it below the bottle cap.  Lastly, I tacked a little ribbon knotted in the middle with thread above the heart charm.

  You can finish the back with another piece of wool felt or fabric, stitched or glued, to cover the felting and stitches.  Also sew a pinback, and it's ready to pin on your favorite jacket.

Inspiration Starter - A Felted Brooch

  Here's any easy project for making a felted brooch.  I started with two sizes of circles, one 3.5 inches, and one 2.5 inches diameters.  I used a wool felt as a base, but you can use your favorite fabric or interfacing for your base.  I hand felted the circles separately, and along the edges, I wrapped the extra roving to the back and lightly felted to hold in place.  I was concentrating so much on the felting, I didn't even notice my circles had become lopsided.  Well, since I was just practicing, I decided to continue on, making a mental note to watch the shape.  I then added a contrasting color to the center of each flower circle.  Now it was time to stack the two flowers, and see how it looked.  I attached the two layers by concentrating the felting in the center making it tighter.  This also leaves a nice area to attach something for the center of the flower.  I added a rhinestone button, but there are many things you could use.  With the sparkle in the center, I decided to add a little more by sewing some seed beads along the edge of each flower. 

  Well, as so many times, one thing leads to another.  The flower was complete, but now I noticed an area that was really lopsided.  :-)  It was too late to add more felting, so I looked on my table, and there found some paper leaves and attached those on the back to fill in the uneven space.  I finished it off by adding a smaller piece of wool felt to the back, using a slip stitch and fabric glue, then a pinback.

  Next dilema came when it was time to take a photo.  How can I display this and make it look like a piece of art.  After trying several decorative papers, I remember another project I had started, and maybe the colors would work together.

  I usually have several projects going at any one time.  I had some fabric that I was trying the Adirondack sprays to dye.  I first washed a piece of muslin, to remove any sizing.  I twisted it to wring out the excess water, and spread it on a piece of plastic.  While the fabric was still wet, I sprayed the fabric randomly with Terra Cotta, Butterscotch, and Lettuce color washes.  When it was dry, I decided I like the wrinkles look, so didn't I didn't iron it, and just wrapped it around a canvas panel and glued on the back.  So now I had a background to photograph my felted flower. 

  To complete the arrangement, I added a page of text, piece of ribbon, and lace scrap which was also dyed with the same Adirondack color washes.  I think it's ready for the photo!

Paperwhimsy products used:

Wool Roving and Hand Felting Tools

Seed Beads

Adirondack Color Washes

Prima Paper Leaves

   

A Little Felting and Little Fabric

  Here's a little felted and fabric collage.  I started by laying several colors of roving across a piece of wool felt.  Lightly hand felted and added a few coordinating fibers.  Using a fancy zigzag stictch I stitched the fabric collage to the felted piece.  Across the top I added a few different sized turquoise buttons.  I also cut several small circles from a peachy colored fabric, and randomly sewed them to the felted piece with small beads.  Finally I added a real twig across the top of the fabric image, and secured it with embroidery thread.  I loosely fastened the entire piece to the rusty gate frame.  The fabric piece measures approximately 6x8 inches.

Every Girl should have One or Two

Every Girl needs at least or even more.  A crown for every day or every mood.  These are so much fun to make, you might not be able to stop at just one!

PaperWhimsy items used:

Rusty Tin Ribbon 1/2 and 1/4 inch

Rusty Vines

Rusty Filigree Embellishments

Rusty Old Bottle Caps

Vintage Glass Glitter

Aurora Borealis Rhinestones

Butterfly Collage sheet # 117

Feather Birds

PaperWhimsy items used:

Hand-dyed Silk Ribbon

Images from Collage sheets #117 and #125

Vintage Glass Glitter

Grapevine Roping

Feather Birds

Just in Time for your Easter decorating

  Do you love those old fashioned Victorian ornaments and decorated eggs?  Here I've used a lot of shiny things to embellish eggs, a house, and a bird's nest.

   

PaperWhimsy items used:

The Incredible Egg

German Dresden Scallop Trim

German Dresden Foil Embellishments

German Dresden Gold Crown

Oodles of Rhinestones

Hand-dyed Silk Ribbon

Velvet Leaf Sprigs

Vintage Glass Glitter

Art Crepe Paper

Lumiere Paint

Distress Crackle Paint

Rhinestone Picks

Feather Birds

Small Wooden eggs

  This little Paper Mache house pull toy would make a great little Easter basket, filled with candy and goodies. 

PaperWhimsy items used:

Little Paper Mache Cottage

Distress Crackle Paint

Lumiere Paint

Vintage Glass Glitter

German Dresden Scallop Trim

Prima Flowers

Velvet Leaf Sprigs

Oodles of Rhinestones

Collage Sheets #66 and #99

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.

A Little More Grungeboard

  I wanted to try the grungeboard on something a little more dimensional.  I am using the Paper Mache Mannequin painted with Lumiere Paint.  I antiqued the dressform with thinned brown acrylic paint.  I then painted the Grungeboard Elements in a faux rust.  After attaching the grungeboard to the mannequin, I embellished with seed beads, lace and an amber rhinestone.  I finished it off with rusted screen wings.