Craft: Sewing on stretched canvas

You should try this!  With needle and thread try sewing on your stretched canvas instead of decoupage’.
I painted the stretched canvas solid black with acrylic paint.  This time I didn’t do a wash, I used the acrylic paint straight out of the bottle, just poured it on the canvas and painted it and get the sides while your at it.
Before the paint drys, lay your paper doily, centered on the canvas, to use as a stencil.  Once centered I used lilac, white and orange and went all around the doily dabbing with my brush, letting the colors all mix together.  Pull up the doily promptly so it won’t stick to the canvas.
Use a particular part of the doily and decorate the corners using it as a stencil.  I used orange on the corners.
With your brush, just dip it in your lilac paint (or whatever color you have chosen) and put little dots here and there all over the canvas.  I tried to stay with the design.  Do the same with a second color.
While that is drying, prepare your focal point.  Of course mine is a butterfly.  I cut this butterfly out of screen wire then put an orange wash of acrylic paint on it which made it appear rusted.  Sew a jute body on it and two small silk roses.  Using a small paint brush, put some dots of color here and there to pretty it up and make it more interesting.


Now that your canvas is completely dry, place your item (butterfly) in the center and begin sewing it on.  I used a blue thread and also sewed on some veins in the wings.  Then sew anywhere else on the canvas you’d like, I sewed around the circle and the antenna of the butterfly.
With different stitch styles you could probably really enhance this crafty collage quite a bit more with the sewing.  But I had some more ideas for another project so I didn’t sew to much.  I’ll probably have to go back to this idea another day and put more time in the sewing part of it.
I hope you enjoy this craft and can find ways to adapt it more to your style.  If you try one, I’d love to see it.

Need some supplies for this craft? 

New York Wire 33105 Fiberglass Screening, 36-Inch by 84-Inch, Charcoal Plaid PROMOABI Apple Barrel Acrylic Paint, 2-Ounce, Best Selling Colors I Canvas panels 8 x 10 inch (pack of 6)

Craft: Sewing on screenwire

 

 

Here’s a really fun project to do, sew on screen wire!

There are so many interesting things you can do in the craft field.  I particularly like to work with sewing, paint, wood, wire and paper.  This project involves painting on screenwire and then hand sewing with a large needle and yarn.  I used paper doilies for the stencil and a butterfly cut out from my daughters circuit.

First I built my frame with stretcher strips. 

Next, paint the frame with acrylic paints very watered down.

Attach screen wire to the back side of the frame.  You can use staples or small tacks.

Using paper doilies and any other cutouts like the butterfly that you desire, choose your color of acrylic paint and design your picture.

Next decide what part of your design you’d like to sew and begin.  Because this is screen and you can see through it, be sure to watch the path you take, whatever is on the backside will show through, so try to keep it neat.  Also I found that as you are sewing the wire tends to want to stretch, so you’ll have to be gentle when pulling the needle and yarn through.

If you want to put something behind the screen when you are done, you can.  I kept this particular piece void of a background, when you hang it on your wall, you will be able to see the color of the wall behind the design.  I thought that was kind of neat.

This is the picture laying on beige carpet.

                                                                This is the picture laying on a black background.

 

                                                                     And here it is with a cream color behind it

 

You can do a lot of different things with this idea.  I hope you try something and I’d love to see what you make.

Get the stretcher strips for your frame here.

Craft: Freedom to Express Ourselves

I gotta tell you I am enjoying being able to express myself these days.  For so long I have tried to please other people and finally when I realized God made me to be me, not someone else and that He wants me to please Him, not someone else, it’s like I came alive.  A burden was lifted off of me.
As you can tell in this wild craft I worked on today.  And that’s exactly what I did, I went wild and enjoyed every bit of it.
There is absolutely no freehand work in this project at all.  It is all done with stencils and cut outs, paint, wood and a hardboard canvas.  Oh and a staple gun.
Any one can do this, as long as you are not worried what anyone else will think.  Do you like it, did you enjoy doing this?  That’s what matters.  Hopefully though, because I put the word “Believe” on it, maybe someone will think of God when they see it.  I do want to please Him.
1.  Prepare the stretcher strip frame and paint it what ever color you choose.  You can get the strips here for the frame.
2.  Load your brush with a small amount of paint and a lot of water.
3.  Hold your canvas up straight and then run your loaded brush across the top.  If you have it loaded with a lot of water, it will drip and run down the canvas.  Reload and do the same thing again using the same color or a different color if you like.  Continue doing this until you get the desired affect.
4.  Once dry (or not) lay a paper doily  in the center of your canvas (with the center cut out of the doily).  Apply different colors of paint by dabbing all around the doily.
5.  Using a paper butterfly cutout (my daughter has a cricut), lay it across the middle of the stencil doily design.  Trace all the lines.
6.  Pull the butterfly stencil up and work on the butterfly, painting within the lines and painting the traced lines different colors.
7.  Using a stencil for the letters, paint whatever word you would like underneath the butterfly.
8.  Staple to the back side of the stretcher strip frame.
This would make a great gift for  your daughters or grand-daughters for Christmas.  You could put their name underneath the butterfly.
My butterfly really stood out when I put little white dots all around the lines with a paint stick pen.  Try it, it was easy.
Hope you can use this idea, Happy Crafting!

You can purchase a print of this painting by clicking here.