Is foam fabric?!!

On the weekend I did some embossing on foam.  I knew that you could heat foam up and then impress something for a stamp, but I hadn't thought of using that texture in a mixed media piece, until I happened to read it in several places.  I also knew that certain foams could be used as padding in embroideries and I thought, what if?
I had lots of foam scraps I got from a recycling depot and hadn't worked out what to do whith them other than make stamps, but for this experiment, I actually used stamps to make textures.

 Stamps like this with solid backs worked best.

Unmounted stamps and flexible texture plates like these did not work well unless I put a piece of plexiglass over them to even the pressure when I was pressing the texture in.
I forgot to take pictures of the process, but basically, I ironed the foam very briefly between baking paper sheets.  When you peel the paper off after ironing, the foam tended to roll up, but I quickly flattened it out with the stamp and pressed HARD.

Here are a selection of the foams I impressed.

And a close up of the texture.

After I had made quite a few of these with lots of different textures and impressions, I had a bit of fun with some paint.

These two were painted with bronze acrylic.  You can see the one on the left did not impress well in certain areas.  If this happens, you can reheat the foam and try again, but only once or twice.

These two were done using texture plates and a piece of plexiglass.  In the one on the left, I painted with gold paint.  If I did it again, I would use a colour that had more contrast with the white.  Theone on the right was rubbed with oil pastel.  I think oilsticks or a softer pastel would have worked better, however, the effect is quite dramatc.

The two blue pieces were done with diluted acrylic in a spray bottle and the more fluid paint pooled in the crevices, creatng great contrast.  The white sample was rubbed with a distess ink pad, but the colour was not very deep.  Worth a bit more work.

These two were painted with straight acrylic, the left, gold piece was impressed with a doily hardened with white glue and attached to wood as a stamp, which I love using.  The right piece used an unmounted rubber text stamp and plexiglass.
Because the foam was so thin (less than 1/4 in or 2-3mm), I wanted to sew on it.  It sewed extremely well.

The background for this journal quilt was made from scraps left over from a textile collage, which you will be able to see in a week or two as a video.  The strips are simply laid down, not glued pr pieced.  The landscape is a piece of foam impressed with a landscape stamp.  I painted the landscape in appropriate colours, then painted over with iridescent medium (a medium with mica in it).  I stitched it down free motion using a gold thread in all the stamp grooves and around the edge.  I did some scribbly circles around the landscape as a frame and stitched the background with vertical lines.
I made another one or two journal quilts, but put then in my sewing box for me to add some embellishment to - so no pictures :-(

Have fun creating!

weeds and more embellishing

This ATC is just a little sketch of a weed in the garden, using my pitt pens.  The background is a piece of mattboard, which I scribbled and smudged on using crayola slicks and a tiny bit of water.  The word is just made with my ancient Letraset (rub-ons) sheets and the bit of paper lace tape was a last little thought.

When I was cutting flowers the other day, I also embossed (with the same machine) using a clock embossing folder.

This is the folder, It also has a little lacy flourish.

This one is on heavy foil - can't wait to use this one!

Handmade paper.

Tracing paper.  I love how it makes white lines on the transparent paper.

A piece of plastic packaging.  Ditto the white lines.

A piece of light rainbow spun/lutradur

And finally, A painted face wipe

i really love this design.  I think I am going to have to design a mixed media piece to use all of these lovelies.
I did other bits and pieces of embossing, but that is enough eye candy for today, I think.

some charms and fantastic plastic

This atc has a felt bacground, some textured organza ribbon, heart charms and free motion stitching.  The edges are glued and gold leafed and it is backed with a playing card.

This afternoon, I had a play with embossing powder and plastics.  I have seen a video where plastic was embossed with an embosser like a cuttle bug here .  This doesn't require heat. and although I will try it, it wasn't what I wanted.

I tried quite a few different types of plastics.  (This table here is an overwiew of recyclable plastics.)  The first plastic I tried was a number 5 or poly propylene (PP) .  It is not completely clear and is more soft rather than brittle.  Generally it is from take away or thin microwaveable plastic containers - like the ones you can get in packs of six at the supermarket.

the plastic puckered a tiny bit, but it can be flattened while still warm after using the heat gun.  i found it best to hold the gun high up, at least 8 inches and wait a bit longer as there was less puckering this way.
Buoyed on by this success, I tried a few more types of plastic.

Acetate, or transparency did not work as it buckled up straight away and never got anywhere near melting the embossing powder.

This one is PET or number 1 plastic.  This is generally what soda/fizzy drink bottles are made of or frozen meals, but I got it from a non-food packaging.  It didn't work either, buckling under the least heat.

This one didn't have a label, but was from a chinese take away type container and it felt the same as the PP (5) above.  It worked the same as the poly propylene.
The last two plastics I tried  are a bit different.  They both came out of an LCD computer screen when hubby pulled it apart.  The first one is slightly frosted and looks just like quilting stencil plastic.

I have put it on a coloured surface so you could see what I mean.  It worked really well.  I also tried a piece of stencil plastic, to put my mind at rest (not shown) and it worked as well.

This last one is the one I liked the best of all.  It is a reflective clear plastic that I have been collecting from computer sreen demolitions, because it is lovely and shiny like a pearl or a mirror.  It worked very well.

Here is a shot of this reflective plastic so you can sort of see what I mean.  When the light shines through it, it makes rainbows, I must be a bit of a Pollyanna, I suppose.
The reason this one appealed to me so much is that a friend is going to run a dream catcher workshop at our community house, and I thought that if these were suspended at the bottom, they would just top it off.
I am sure you will be seeing this technique in my ATCs (when I get all the hearts out of my system, lol)


Make sure you play every day.