Wish Flags!

I have long admired the beauty, and the concept, of Tibetan Prayer Flags, so when Tina Walker came up with the idea of using StencilGirl stencils to create Wish Flags, I jumped at the chance.

(You can see Tina's post on the StencilGirl Blog, StencilTalk, by clicking here.)

I pulled out two of my favorite designs: a face silhouette from Borderlines, a StencilClub December 2017 set designed by Seth Apter, and Sacred Feminine, a goddess/tree of life design by Carol Wiebe.

For the silhouette flag, I used some hand painted fabric that I had been hoarding for years. I had tried a very cool technique: drawing on fabric with colored Sharpie indelible markers, then using a paintbrush and isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol on the marker, which made it behave like watercolor on paper. (For my blogpost about creating that fabric, click here.)

 

I positioned the Borderlines face silhouette stencil on my fabric, then sponged white acrylic paint on using a cosmetic wedge. It looked pretty good, but the white was a bit lighter than I wanted. I decided to put the stencil back on and go over it with VersaMark ink. After removing the stencil, I sprinkled white embossing powder liberally over the fabric, shook off the excess powder, and blasted it with my heat gun. Success!

The next phase was to decide how to finish it. I auditioned all kinds of trims and ribbons, and finally settled on combining two laces on the bottom. Before I added the lace, I stitched a casing at the top for a hanging rod to go through, and finished the sides. The lace echoed the strong but feminine mood I was aiming for.

 

I reinforced the casing with a decorative floral stitch.

 

 

 

Some of the lace needed to be hand-stitched to ensure that it wouldn't unravel when hanging outside.

For the purple Goddess flag, I first sketched out my idea on a piece of watercolor paper and used sepia ink where I wanted the figures to go. I was happy with the look, so I moved on to fabric.

A deep purple commercial batik seemed just the right fabric, and i decided to use white acrylic, applied carefully with a cosmetic wedge sponge through the stencil.

 

 

 One change I made was that I decided not to have any words on the flag. Instead, I flipped the tree stencil creating a mirror image that sugggested roots.

 There was a lot of fabric at the bottom and I debated about whether to cut it off and add a trim or beads and auditioned a lot of items to hang from the bottom--from coins to beads to feathers. In the end, I decided to cut the fabric and create a fringe, then hand-stitched some indigo and white cloisinee beads to each fringed strip.

Each bead was hand-sewn to the bottom strips, which added both weight and visual interest.

Last but not least, I attached a few beads to a strip of the fabric that would hang from the edges of the hanging dowel.

I live in a high-rise building in New York City and don't have a yard or even a patio, so I am gifting the flags to my brother. They will be delivered when I visit him later this summer, and we can hang the together.

My StencilGirl Creative Team Debut!

My first post as an official StencilGirl® Creative Team Member debuted on May 7. I went back to my fabric designer roots for my project. (Here's the link to my debut.) The theme was "abstract" which was a bit of a challenge...my work tends to be a combination of collage, faces and paper dolls, so abstract was a little out of my comfort zone.

I decided to embrace my roots and instincts, work with my favorite colors and shapes, and create giant doodle-inspired geometric painting. I pulled out a 12"x12" canvas, my drawing pencil, my favorite colors, and got to work. Here's a few how-to steps. For the full tutorial, please click on the link above.

Stencils used:
Stencil Club, March 2019, by Ann Butler, large stencil
Stencil Club, January 2019, Mash Up by Mary Beth Shaw and Seth Apter, medium stencil
Stencil Club, April 2013, Stitchery by Mary Beth Shaw, medium stencil
Grove Street by Nathalie Kalbach

Summer of Love Envelopes and Paper Doll

The sweet little motifs in the March 2019 StencilClub designs by Ann Butler evoked images of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and propelled me back to my younger years. I remembered the special dresses and hats my mother made for me to wear on Easter, and the outfits that, later on, I made for myself to wear to school, dances, proms, and even my graduation. The stencils also reminded me that my first calling, as an artist, was fabric design. Back in the 1980s I worked as a print stylist for a fabric manufacturer in NYC's famous Garment Center. Ann's stencils reminded me of some of our patterns, which were fondly called "dumb florals" or "bread and butter" designs because they were so popular and saleable.

I happily  mixed up some '70s-inspired pastels with my acrylics and got busy making some textiley designs.

Painted and stenciled deli paper

First, I painted sheets of deli paper with the pastel colors. Once dry, I started stenciling randomly with the new set.

I had a big supply of clear mailing sleeves leftover from a recent mail art exchange, so decided to use the painted deli paper to make envelopes, and sized them to fit.

Templates for the envelope and card

The gold circles are washi tape. I miscalculated the shape of one of the flaps, and, with washi tape, added extra paper to my template so it would overlap properly.

 

First, with a piece of heavy watercolor paper, I made a card template slightly smaller than the sleeve. Next, I folded, measured, and cut some paper to make an envelope template. I traced around the envelope template to create the shape of the envelope on each of the five painted and stamped sheets of deli paper.

Painted and stenciled deli paper, cut and ready to fold

Pale blue embossing powder was sprinkled over the floral image, which was made by stamping VersaMark through a stencil, and on to the painted envelope

The painted and stenciled unglued envelope, ready to assemble.

On the front bottom and on the back flap, decorative edging was applied with VersaMark and gold embossing powder.

I added some magic with more stenciling, but this time, instead of paint, I used a VersaMark stamp pad and embossing powder. In addition to the March 2019 club set, I used the April 2013 Stitchery set, designed by Stencil Girl founder Mary Beth Shaw. The Stitchery set fit perfectly with my Summer of Love theme.

 

Five finished handmade deli paper envelopes.

I was really happy with the set of envelopes, but I had quite a few scraps left. Rather than stuffing them in my scrap box for later use, I decided to make one of my favorite "go to" things: a paper doll.

Scraps of painted deli paper were glued to heavy watercolor paper, then cut to create the doll.

Using a template, intentionally mismatched doll parts were cut for the body and limbs.

A dark edge was added by running a mini dauber and sepia Archival Ink along the edges.

Wanting to keep the same Summer of Love theme going, I searched for just the right face to evoke the era. I found a face in an ad that reminded me of Julie from The Mod Squad, a show that was the epitome of cool in its day. I carefully glued the face to some heavy watercolor paper, cut it out, and ran the sepia mini dauber around the edges.

I fashioned a Woodstock-worthy floral crown from a little piece of pink scalloped edging and added some tiny satin rosettes. Some "granny boots" from The Graphics Fairy completed her hippie look. Still, something was missing...wings!

Using a butterfly stencil from Gwen Lafluer, I applied VersaMark onto black paper, then sprinkled gold embossing powder, and zapped it with my heat gun. The final touch was adding pink circles at the edges of the wings, which I punched out from the deli paper leftover scraps.

The finished Summer of Love doll, atop a pile of matching envelopes.

Doesn't this just make you want to go home, pull out the old Simplicity patterns, play the Mamas and Papas, and watch reruns of The Mod Squad? Or at least attend the next Coachella festival?