Fun Summer Project

Jane Davila, the facilitator of the FANE group I meet with monthly, had an idea for a fun summer swap project.  All the participants put some craft items into a brown lunch bag and then we all swapped bags.  I won't show you what I put in my bag, but above is a photo of the supplies I received: some stamps, some glass beads, and some soft paper flower embellishments.

The next step is to create 20 small pieces (4"x4 1/2") which we will bring to the September meeting.  We'll swap them so we each have 20 different small pieces, each made by a different artist, to put into a book or wall hanging.  Even though I have other larger projects to work on, I thought it would be fun to jump right into this so I'd have the whole summer to work on the pieces one at a time.

When I saw that big flower stamp, I immediately thought of yellow-centered daisies on a blue background (I love the summery freshness of a blue, yellow and white color scheme, don't you?).  I scrounged up some plain PFD fabric and cut two small pieces, enough for the swap.  To keep the daisies white, I decided to start with Batik-EZ, which is a resist.  I sponged it on and stamped away!

Here is the white fabric with the flowers stamped on:

After the Batik-EZ was dry, I mixed some Setacolor transparent paints with water and painted it all over.  I splashed on some yellow and a little fuschia, then painted in some bright green lines and swirls. Finally, I painted all the background blue.  Here's what it looked like after it dried and I washed out the Batik-EZ:

 I decided to add some more white by stamping some additional daisies over the top.  I used some real daisies as stamps, as well as the large daisy stamp and another from my stash.

This is what the final fabric looked like.  Isn't it pretty?  The batiked daisies really look like a real batik!

I ironed some of the fabric onto some heavy fusible interfacing (like Timtex) and cut up a few squares.  I even did a little free motion stitching and added the words "be happy" with some stamps.  I'll spend the rest of the summer stitching on some of the beads and paper flowers from the bag to individualize each one.  I think they will make nice pieces to swap!  And I'll have something small to take with me on vacation, or when I have a few free minutes here and there.