my creative space, embellished

Ooh its been a while since I last hung out here. I hope I still have the knack.

So this week, for a change, there has been plenty of creativity going on, and its mostly been coffee table printing. Great fun as the two year old can actually join in.

First off the rank; a printed onesie for the 4 month old bubba. The onesie we were given as a gift, so I spiced it up a little with a simple monster print. Print done using a contact cut out (you know that stuff you use to cover school books). A not too scary blue monster for the little man.

And for the little lady, some cheap plain t-shirts from target, transformed into one off pieces with a bit of scrapbooking lacy paper used as stencils.

I've been scouring scrapbook shops for cool cut out papers that can be used for screen printing. All you need to do is use spray adhesive (washable) to attach the lace paper securely to the garment, then paint with fabric paint over the top. Peel off the stencil whilst the paint is still wet and; instant screen print. This one was made with lace paper.

The next one was created with a cut out border paper. First I sewed a circle of patterned fabric to the t shirt to add a different effect. Then printed in white over the top. It kind of looks like a big round moon (albeit pink) in the background.
I've still got two t-shirts left to embellish, so any ideas are welcome. We've certainly had fun with our coffee table printing so far.

Time to go make myself (firstly some time - any crafty ideas on how to whip some of this up?) a coffee and sit back and peruse the inspiring creativity that is around. Looking forward to it! Head on over to Kirsty's for more creative spaces.

screen printing with contact

Oops. Has it really been a week and a half since I last posted? Where did that time go? No idea, but I have been neglecting this poor little blog. Time to give it some TLC I think!

Although it hasn't been a time completely void of crafting (but it must have been very busy with some other very important things, I'm sure...) I got into a bit of screen printing, or the very easy do-it-on-the-dining-room-table method using contact (the clear adhesive plastic used for covering books with), a sponge roller and some fabric ink.

Two projects came to life. A t shirt for my hubby for his birthday and a little decoration for a plain top for the baby. The t shirt is my favourite as it is of our (beautiful lovely friendly) dog Max, who can be seen in the non 2D version on our last camping trip here. I enlarged and printed out a favourite photo of Max. Traced the outline onto the contact. Using a sharp blade, cut out the shape from the contact so you are left with a reverse out of the picture. Then, you hold the sheet of contact over the t shirt, very carefully pull away the backing from the contact whilst trying to stick the contact flat to your item to be printed. This is the trickiest part really, particularly if you have a large picture to print!. Then, once it is stuck down well, you roll or paint your ink in the cut out. Pull the contact off and you have yourself a great screen print!

The print is then ironed from both sides, a lot! The fabric ink jar said to iron for 15 mins, but I can't imagine the fabric would have withstood that, so I just ironed it a lot. The pic is after it has been washed too, so obviously I ironed it enough to set the ink! (A quick iron might have made the final product look a little more impressive too, but I think I was all ironed out by that stage).

I'm sure there are plenty of good tutorials out there (with a few more photos - I always get so carried away in my projects, that I often forget to take photos until the very end!), however I learnt this simple technique at a workshop during the Melbourne Stitches and Craft Show from the very talented Tegan over at Ink & Spindle.

The other print was the base of a daisy, inspired by a a small but obvious stain that I can't seem to remove in the wash. Not overly exciting yet, but this one is a work in progress, as I need to add some material and a bit of sewing to bring this to life. But the print is a start!