If you didn't get a kit to play along with then raid your sewing cupboard (or the sewing cupboard of someone who has a sewing cupboard?) and grab some felt, fabric scraps, thread and have a play.
Here Julie who shows you loads of wonderful things to do with Crafty Templates Quirky Kits shows you what she did with her Fabric Sundae Quirky Kit........Scrap Like You Mean It: Scrapping With Fabric
If you’ve never scrapped with fabric before then don’t panic. It’s really not that different from using paper. It can be layered up onto the base cardstock of your layout like any paper and, when using it in this way, I’ve found no need to use anything other than my regular tape rollers or double sided tapes to secure it.
It can also be used to create your embellishments as Leo has done with her handmade rosette included in the kit. You can also draw or stamp simple appliqué style designs [such as hearts, flowers, birds] onto fabric cut them out and add them to your page either with DST, glue or even by sewing them directly onto your cardstock. Most sewing machines will easily stitch through a layer of fabric and card at the same time - plus you can experiment with contrasting cotton colours along with the different stitch designs and settings on your machine.
You can use your fabric to journal with. Try cutting out large individual letters for your titles, write directly onto paler, less patterned fabrics using a fabric pen or even stitch your message directly onto your swatch. This can be done either freehand, as I did on my layout, or using traditional [and straighter!] cross-stitches.
One of the reasons I enjoy using fabrics in my work is that you can treat it badly and yet it’s a very forgiving material. It can disguise any lumps and bumps you’ve made on a page, helping you cover up your mistakes. If it tears or frays the effect only adds to the texture and creates a unique tactile quality to the work. It can be ironed back to perfection if you’ve accidentally creased and crumpled it or it can even look interesting and artistic even if you want to leave it crumpled and say you did it deliberately!!
So here’s how I ‘scrapped like I meant it’ with fabric:
- I wanted to showcase the adorable Russian doll design fabric, to mirror the little dolls in my photo, so I cut a strip of it and displayed it across the bottom of my page.- I often use fabric in flat strips like this but, inspired by a layout in Ashley Calder’s incredible book Scraptastic I was eager to add in something different.
- To make use of its texture and depth I worked my way around my page, from bottom to top, looping the yellow felt and red polka-dot fabric strips and securing them along their top edges with Crafter’s Pick ‘Incredibly Tacky’ glue.
- There’s a whole skein of embroidery thread included in the kit and, even after using it to wonkily hand stitch my title, there were metres of it left over.
- Wanting to capture some of its silky textural quality, which is best displayed while it’s all still looped together, I left it in a bundle and simply glued it straight on to my cardstock backing.
- I added extra colour and detail by looping up the bright pink ribbon and turquoise faux suede strip and tucking them under the next layer of fabric or covering the top with a button to disguise my adhesive.
[My backing paper is American Crafts ‘Study Hall’ and I used Adornits alphabet stickers – everything else came from the ‘Fabric Sundae Quirky Kit’].Along with producing a layout with your fabric, you could also try covering the pages of a mini book. This works especially well as you get to handle the finished item and enjoy the tactile quality which fabric brings to your work. One of my favourite projects of all time is this mini tag book: http://notesonpaper.blogspot.com/2008/12/shining-example.html which I decorated with off-cuts of polka dot fabric and which I keep closed using a safety pin!Hope you enjoy scrapping like you mean it with your Fabric Sundae as much as I did.
Julie
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If you'd like to print out Julie's tips and LO I've put together a PDF version you can save and/or print off to use you can download it click on this link:
Loving Julie's layout!
If you'd like some more things to play with I've also picked out some Templates from past sets and projects that I thought would be fun to use with fabric both of which I used on my own layout. If you're not sure how to use them here's what I do with them:
Print the template off and roughly cut it out (don't cut along the line just cut it out of the sheet so there's a space around it). Turn it over and dab a little Pritt Stick on the back then stick the fabric/felt to it. Turn it back over and then cut out the template sheet, carefully sticking to the line and cutting through both the paper and the fabric. When you're done peel the paper off and you have your shape perfectly cut out.
I picked out the Fancy Frames template and the Poppy Flowers template.
You can download them both from here just click on the above links.
Here's the page I came up with. It's mothers day soon so I thought of making a special page for mum. The felt flower I made with the Poppy Flower template (my mum's fave flowers) and the Fancy Frame template I cut out from the fabric in the Quirky Kit and then just inked around the edge, just like you normally would with paper.If you want to use some other freebie Crafty Templates have a peek on the Freebie page.
I also made my own fabric brad with the dolly fabric. If you want to have a go at that all you need is a large brad (I used one of the Dovecraft jumbo ones from my stash) a sewing needle and from your Fabric Sundae kit a small scrap of your felt a single strand piece of your thread and a square of your fabric that has a motif in the center ...........
Stick the felt to the front of the brad with doublesided tape then cut around the edge. Turn the brad over and open out the prongs. Place the fabric under the brad so your chosen motif is central on the front of the brad. Stitch a running stitch around the brad so there's a small space around the edge and then pull as tight as you can so the fabric wraps around the edge of the brad.
Close the prongs and then put more stitches across the back of the brad to pull together the loose fabric edges and make the edge really neat. When it looks right make a knot with a stitch and cut it off to finish. Push the prongs back to how they looked originally. There you have your finished fabric brad. Once you've made one it gets easier to do and you can have great fun inventing your own brad designs!Hope you have fun with your fabric and don't forget at the end of the week Julie is going to pick out her favourite scrapping with fabric layout from those uploaded to the UKScrappers Scrap Like You Mean it gallery, http://www.ukscrappers.co.uk/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=7264
I've got a pizza box full of Quirky Kit goodies for the winner!
Happy scrapping!
xx Leo
1 comment:
Love the fabric brad idea - will definitely have a go at this - thanks Leo!
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