2018 #16 Reinkers: Coloring fabric with EEG {by Anneke de Clerck}

2018 Topic 16: Reinkers

 Wow, this looks like so much fun!! Fabric, paper, stitching and plenty of inky goings on! Anneke has created a truly wonderful project for you in this post! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Anneke here today. I'd like to share an art journal with you I made for the current "Reinkers" challenge.

I admire the work of Roben Marie Smith. She often works with fabric and ribbon and I see lots of stitches on her projects. Inspired by her I decided to make my own project using fabric, ribbon and stitches.

First I spent an afternoon coloring strips of fabric, ribbon and gauze with the regular Distress Ink reinkers. The next day I used the result of this coloring session to create an art journal. It was super fun and easy to put together. For the inside pages I've chosen a good quality watercolor paper. That's the benefit of making your own art journals, you can fill them with any type of paper you like working on.

For the base of the cover I used a piece of firm turquoise felt (17 x 30 cm). I stitched colored strips of fabric (+/- 2,5 cm wide) on top of the felt. 

To color the strips I applied 4 drops of the regular Distress Ink reinker on a craft sheet and sprayed water on top. I put torn strips of white fabric into that puddle. On some strips I worked with only one color, on others I used 2 matching colors.

Depending on the amount of water I added I ended up with softer or brighter colors.

I used the following Distress Ink reinkers: Shaded Lilac, Tattered Rose, Twisted Citron, Broken China, Picked Raspberry, Ripe Persimmon, Cracked Pistachio, Squeezed Lemonade, and Weathered Wood. I noticed it took some time for the colored strips to dry. 

After drying I machine stitched the strips on the felt with a simple straight stitch using turquoise thread. I started on the right side of the felt panel, aligned the edge of the first strip to the edge of the felt panel. I put each strip partially on top of the previous one before stitching. After covering the whole felt panel with strips of fabric I folded the leftover fabric at the top and bottom to the backside and attached it to the felt with double sided tape.

I alternated blue/green strips with pink/orange/lila strips. Love the distressed look of the torn strips. 

At the backside I covered the felt with a sheet of canvas paper. After decorating the canvas I used double sided tape to attach it to the felt.

I painted the canvas using a flat brush and a mixture of Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics Snowflake and Bubble Gum. 

I overstamped the inside covers with stamps from the EEG17 & EEG22 stamp sets.  While art journaling the inspiring quotes will help me over the fear of the blank page :)

Love the font style of the quote stamps as well, they are very versatile!

The felt base of the cover is very bendable/flexible. I didn't have to make crisp folds at the spine as I'm usually doing while making covers. 

I added 2 signatures to the colorful cover. I started by cutting 10 sheets of watercolor paper from a watercolor paper pad by Prima (size 17 x 26 cm). I folded 5 sheets in half and nested the pages into each other, repeated this step for the second signature.

I set 6 eyelets into the spine. Two in the middle of the spine and the others 2 cm from the head and tail.

With an awl I made 3 holes in each signature and I used a three hole pamphlet stitch to attach the signatures to the cover. I did the sewing with turquoise waxed thread.

I colored a bunch of white ribbon with the Distress Ink reinkers as well. 

As my fingers were blue and green already anyway, I also colored a few strips of gauze.

I used the ribbon to make a removable closure for the art journal. I wanted the closure to be an eye catcher so I stamped the big flower from the EEG22 set on watercolor paper using Archival Ink Jet Black. I water colored the flower using Distress Ink re-inkers Twisted Citron, Cracked Pistachio and Broken China. I cut it out, set an eyelet in the middle of the flower and attached 2 long strips of ribbon by making a knot.

To decorate the cover I made a collage using gesso-ed book text, colored gauze, a pink strip of fabric, green ribbon and a stamp from the EEG17 stamp set. I stitched the collage to the cover before adding the canvas backside.

Because Distress Ink reinkers have intense colors I ended up with brightly colored strips of fabric. That's just what I'm fond of! And I love the Distress Ink color palette, don't you?

I rarely use my sewing machine while making art. I love seeing stitches on other crafters cards, books or art journal pages but most of the time I'm too lazy to pick up my own sewing machine :) On this occasion I had the courage to thread my machine and I didn't regret it. I have to do this more often. 

I kept the decoration of the cover simple. I wanted the flower and the collage/quote to be the focal points. I'm very happy with how the closure turned out. That flower designed by Emma Godfrey is one of my favorite stamps.

I hope I could inspire you to colour some fabric or ribbon yourself and maybe make your own art journal filled with your favorite type of paper. Don't forget to link your project to the challenge page.
I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Thanks for stopping by!

Anneke

My blog

http://somefiddlingonthekitchentable.blogspot.be

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https://www.pinterest.com/anneke1/

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To join our challenge and win a £50 PaperArtsy gift voucher:

Simply make something arty relevant to the topic, and link your creation from any social URL (eg. Instagram, Pinterest, Blog Post etc) sharing your original make to this challenge page.

The current topic link Topic 16: Reinkers will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, September 30th 2018, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

All links go in the draw to win a PaperArtsy £50 gift voucher. Please make sure we can contact you as a prize winner - it helps if you share your contact info from the platform you opt to use. 

Prize conditions: Please note if you are a successful prize winner our online shopping cart will give you £50 off the subtotal of products in your basket. This means you will need to pay the relevant postage on the order.  We cannot figure out how to create a prize with a  zero value, but I guess even paying the postage only is still a good deal right!

Good Luck! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!