Thursday, August 16, 2012

Using Fabric Scraps on Projects by Alison


Hi there! New Practical Scrapper Alison here with a post on how to incorporate one of the hottest trends in the paper crafting market onto your projects. Fabric! There are many types of fabric you can add to your cards and layouts - some that have been around for ages (think ribbon and lace) and some that are fairly new (fabric paper). Today I want to show you how to take ordinary pieces of cotton fabric and transform them!

First let's make some embellishments out of fabric like I did here on these two cards.



Both these flowers were made using a piece of cotton fabric and a sheet of Multipurpose Adhesive for the Big Shot. For a more thorough photo tutorial please visit my blog and look for today's post (August 16). The quick version is to take a sheet of adhesive, peel the backing off one side and stick it down to your fabric (tip: iron your fabric first to make sure it's as crease free as possible!) Use your bone folder to get out any additional creases or air bubbles. Trim off the excess fabric and then get cutting!


I used the Fun Flowers Bigz large die for the Big Shot and cut out two full set of flowers plus a couple extra large ones (maximizing my fabric!) Once you have your card base ready simply peel the backing off the die cut flowers and adhere to your card.

Like so! I added a button, some Bakers Twine and a sentiment to finish off the card.

For a slightly different look, I left the die cut flowers on the adhesive sheet backing which allowed me to curl the edges for more texture.

My second idea today is to use your fabric as if it were paper. Sound crazy? Check out my layout to see how I accomplished this.

There are literally 3 pieces of paper on this whole layout (okay, 5 if you count the photos!) - the background card stock and the two pinked circles under the rolled fabric flowers. Everything else is fabric!

The large square of brown fabric was adhered using another Multipurpose Adhesive Sheet and the smaller pieces were adhered using double sided tape. (If I had a functional sewing machine I would have sewn them to the card stock but ... I don't, so tape and glue are my friends!)

Here a close up of the layers of fabric. Oh yeah, I also wrote right onto the fabric! Easy peasy!!

Here's one of those rolled fabric flower accents I was talking about. Using a giant glue dot, a scrap of extra fabric and a pinked circle, it makes an easy and coordinating embellishment. Here's how I did it.

Start with your giant glue dot - take off the top layer of plastic to expose the glue.

Twist your fabric and place one end in the middle of the glue dot.

Keep twisting your fabric as you roll it around and around from the centre out until you are left with something that looks like this. The longer and thicker your piece of fabric the bigger and fuller your finished flower. I punched out a 2.5" circle of white card stock and used my pinking shears to pink the edges. Once it was mounted onto this I added a button and called it done!

One last way to use fabric on your layouts ... as trim to help anchor a photo.


Thanks for joining me today as we explored my second favourite thing to stock pile ... FABRIC! I'd love to see you come over to visit me on my blog too. 

3 comments:

Phillis Walrath said...

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO beautiful!! I am am going to dig through my fabric and use some ona LO!

Kristie Maynard said...

I have used fabric, but mostly to make embellishments. I'll have to try using it like paper. It looks beautiful on yours! Thanks for the great ideas!

gram cheryl said...

As quilting is my first love, I have often wished I had paper with the print of a fabric and vice versa. Now I have an idea how to use fabric as paper...if they only made the paper washable!