More weekend fun

Well, I'm still trying to figure out how to get photos where I want them. These are pictures of some of the things I did this weekend.

The red design follows the format I'd set out for the Take It Further challenge. While I love the gold and the texture, I don't think it reflects my sister.

I made a stencil from freezer paper and ironed it on. Then I coated the open spaces with gold stamp pad ink (pigment) or embossing powder (gold and clear iridescent). Then I zapped it with the heat gun. All went well until I think the heat began to affect the polyester in the fabric (I'd thought it was 100% cotton but was wrong). Fumes from burning polyester are not fun and not recommended. I do rather like the result, however.

For the second fabric above I used the cutouts from the red mask to make a reverse stencil and used gold paintstick to pain the background on dark blue fabric. Then I used rubbing plates (hard plastic from Target's paper craft department--they're advertised more for embossing and I think they may fit into a machine) and made rubbings in the squares. I do believe this will be my TIF background.

These three are rubbings using paintsticks on rubbing plates from Cedar Canyon, the company from whom I bought the paintsticks.

I used multiple colors on each and had a great deal of fun playing with the color mixes and blends. They are on dark blue or black

fabric. I did a rubbing or two on muslin, but the effect of the iridescent paint sticks is much more pronounced on very dark fabrics.

Next time I have play time, I want to try some of the fine stencils I have. I also purchased blending paintsticks so I can lighten and mix colors. But that's for the future, for now I plan to work more on the TIF challenge. If only my order of Misty Fuse and Organza printer sheets would arrive...

I've been rather obsessing about the project and am now working on the overlays and how I want them. Jane pointed out that putting sheers over the dark busy panel, as I'd planned, might have unexpected effects, so now I'm working to take that into consideration. Perhaps I'll make the bottom layer of overlay more opaque.

I've also realized that I have this page stuck in my mind as the back of the book (or the bottom of the stack, as I've been viewing it). It just came to me that this could be rather odd, I would normally think of January as the first page, or front. But I've decided to go with my intuition and leave this as the back and will add new pages in front of it.