New Work

I thought you might like to see what I have been up to this last week.

First I have made a box cover for my artists trading cards.

Then I made two more cards to put in it.

The one on the left is using Anne's portrait that was on the wrapping paper round my book that I bought from the exhibition.  The one on the right is using my fabric from India along with a good luck bracelet I was given while on holiday there.

A few weeks ago I did some screen printing and was going to bring it to the meeting to put a second colour on it, so on Wednesday I decided I would get on and finish it.

The top three pieces were printed first with red and the black on the centre and right hand side pieces. The green piece underneath is a thermofax screen.  Similar principle to a screen print but the design is fixed into the screen so you can use it over and over again.

I then got out my jelli plate and did these prints.  Who knew that the potato masher had such a lovely design (prints on the right).

This is my clean up baby wipe which will make a good background piece sometime.

The other piece of screen printing I did I then photocopied and cut it into pieces and moved it around to try and make other patterns.  I think my zig zags were a bit far apart but I could make something interesting from this.

Challenge of this Week!!

Has anyone got some lightweight Tyvek that they don't know what to do with?

Here is a way to make some nice beads with it.  You will need a heat gun for this.

Cut some strips of Tyvek about 6 inches long and as wide as the bead you want.  Don't make them too narrow as they are more difficult to tie.  Start with something about 1.5 inches wide.

Paint the strips with a different colour on each side.  I used both Koh-I-Noor and Inktense paints and they work as well as each other.

When dry, put a dab of glue on the end of the strip and roll it tightly round a knitting needle and secure with the glue.  I used a number 7 needle.

Using a length of metalic thread, secure it round one end of the bead, wrap it round a couple of times, then wrap the middle of the bead and finally the other end. Secure the thread by threading through a needle and then under the wrapped thread and loop.  It must be metallic thread as this won't melt under the heat gun.  

I used this one from Madeira but it did tarnish a bit under the heat.

This Madeira thread is better. It is a three stranded gold.

Keep your bead on the knitting needle and then zap it with a heat gun.  The Tyvek will melt between the threads and tiny bits of colour will show through from the reverse of the paper. 

Hope you can see these OK, I was quite pleased with them and will do some more I think.

Keep Stitching!!