Paper + Stitch = Plenty of Fun

Have sewing machine and paints, will travel. That was my motto when I signed up for Tweety Jill’s “Mixed Media Art Girl Cards” class at She Scrapbooks in The Villages, FL this past weekend. Jill brought the stamps, inks, stencils, modeling paste, creative ideas, and much more. So we were off. Four students learned to combine the paste, tinted with paint, along with stamps to create backgrounds on cardstock. We then added stamped images, sayings, and some messy stitching to complete the graffiti-style note cards.





The girl images are stamped, using Dina Wakely rubber stamps, either directly on the background, or onto cardstock, and then cut out and applied. The messy stitching details are added last. The machine does go nicely through the dried paste, though it slowed a little where it was especially thick. The card on the left is still in need of a saying. The envelope on the right is one Jill gave me after using it to demonstrate ink pads applied through sequin waste (punchinella), and spatter painting to add further interest to our designs.




We were happily elbow deep in all the class supplies, and gave it all our spontaneous best. I still have traces of paint and ink left on my hands the day after, despite a thorough scrubbing. I forgot to bring barrier hand cream with me which really helps with clean up. This is an over-the-shoulder view of one of my classmate's work.




After creating three of the notecards, I spent some time stamping and creating elements that I can combine with other images for furture cards. It’s always fun to use others’ stamps that I don’t have at home. It's kind of like other people's fabric scraps- always more interesting than my own.





These are a few of the girls, and envelope embellishments I’ll incorporate. I can hardly wait to see what they will become! By the way, I photographed these cards on a beautiful piece of hand-painted fabric I won from the 100th post on Sonja Hagemann Designs blog. It's just lovely, and I'm not sure yet what it's going to become either.








And here’s a glimpse of Jill’s teaching station with a few more of the sayings and images she demonstrated. The four hours of our class flew by, and I still needed to shop. The clearance corner yielded up a few treasures, and I got a small  Gelli plate for printing on paper and fabric plus a couple of gift items. This shop is worth a visit if you get to central Florida. All in all, this was a productve and creatively satisfying day. I hope to take more classes from Tweety Jill- she’s great fun and her ideas flow non-stop.