Bag It

Bag It

Hallo Everyone!

How're you today?  Well

I hope and having a great

week.  

Not sure I'm full of the 

joys of spring but today's

project brought to us by

Craftyfield might have

a lot to do with it!

"Since last year's introduction of the plastic 

bag charge in the UK I make sure I always have

 a bag with me, preferably one that is light 

and that I can fold and shove in my handbag. 

A crafting opportunity... 

As this is my first time using So Soft paint, 

I decided to put it through its paces and 

test several ways of using it: 

as a wash (like watercolour), to stencil with, and to stamp with.

This is the bag before transformation. 

To prepare it for colour, I have ironed it and

 inserted a rigid piece of cardboard with some paper

 on top to absorb any excess water or paint seeping 

on the wrong side.

 I also masked out the area of my painting.

The So Soft paints are quite pigmented so for my sky 

I have prepared a mix of Mediterranean Blue paint and water 

in a small container and brushed some water on 

what will be my sky.

 As I go down the fabric I add more water

 to the mix fading the blue to (almost) nothing.

 I have repeated the process with green for the grass 

and lastly in the middle with the Buttermilk.

 Next I used a small sponge to stencil circles

 with So Soft paint using a DIY stencil. 

These will be my flower heads.

To stamp my flowers I used Brilliance ink in Graphite Black. 

I tested on a separate piece of fabric and found

 that Versafine and Archival stamped equally well,

 but not better than Brilliance, and I find 

easier to wash Brilliance off from the stamps... 

To make sure the ink was wet enough 

I topped it up with the re-inker before starting.

 Here I'm using 2 of the smaller flowers from the 

stamp set as a filler.

 A small piece of plastic packaging serves as a 

palette(bottom right) and I have spread paint thinly on it.

Now for the stencilling.... Again I'm using my DIY stencil, 

the distressed diamonds have been die-cut with 

the Mixed Media Thinlits set.

 I mixed Buttermilk and Dark Burgundy paints 

to get the pink I was after.

And finally a close up taken in natural light. 

I still have the reverse unpainted so I can have more crafty fun!

I liked the So Soft paint very much, as it is easy to use

compared to traditional fabric paints and they are

 indeed soft, which might not seem like a big thing 

for a bag but, as I said, this one will spend its life folded

 in my handbag so cracked paint is out of the question!"

Supplies: 

Cotton bag natural:
So Soft paints:
Paper Artsy EKC02:
Brilliance Dew Drop inkpad in Graphite black:
Brilliance ink reinker in Graphite black: 

Thank you Craftyfield for your beautiful bag

Love the depth of shading you have achieved

These paints really do work well, although I never

thought of adding water to them and using as a wash.  

That was a masterstroke.

'Till tomorrow

Mickie xx