The Hive Spring Creative Challenge: Totebag: UPDATE

UPDATE:  Favecrafts is giving away a pack of 10 sheets of Lutradur on their site.  Check out the link here:  http://www.favecrafts.com/sweeps/Lutradur-Mixed-Media-Sheets-Giveaway Contest ends April 15th so be sure to check it out right away.  For lots of ideas on what to do with the Lutradur, read my post below about what I made from it for Wednesday Night Live in the C & T Publishing Digital Lounge hosted by Lisa Fulmer and check out Lisa’s blog post for the playback link so you can see the rest of the craft demo’s that were done with Lutradur. http://creatingthehive.com/blog-post/94433/wednesday-night-live-ndash-replay

Here’s what I’ve made for the Hive Spring Creative Challenge and it was also my craft demo on Wednesday Night Live in the C & T Publishing Digital Lounge hosted by Lisa Fulmer.  One of the bonuses of this cute project is that it was made for under $5!

The show was all about Lutradur, an amazing non-woven polyester product that has a lot of the qualities of fabric but many of the qualities of paper at the same time.  It’s got this cool texture to it where you can see the fibres within it and it’s translucent which makes it GREAT for layering.  While it may resemble other textured materials like dryer sheets and certain interfacings in some ways, it’s much stronger and more tear-resistant which gives you many more applications for it.  It comes in three weights – regular, heavy, and ultra lightweight.  Check out C & T Publishing to learn more about it and for purchasing: http://www.ctpub.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=1312

A while back I did a review of the book Fabulous Fabric Art with Lutradur by Lesley Riley http://cynchronicity.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/book-review-fabulous-fabric-art-with-lutradur-by-lesley-riley/ and I decided that for this demo, it would be fun to try out several of the techniques in this amazing book.  http://www.ctpub.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=1260

I started out with this super cute brown burlap bag with turquoise handles from my local dollar store.  For the heart and the birds I used the regular weight of Lutradur.  With the heart, I simply dripped on various shades of alcohol inks.  What’s fun about doing this with Lutradur is that because of the texture in it, it will bleed slightly alone the lines of the fibres and blend into the other colours.

With the birds, I used a resist technique.  I dabbed on some blue ink from an ink pad to coat the piece of Lutradur and then stamped using a foam stamp and some Liquitex Matte Gel Medium.  http://www.ctpub.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=1564 I let the gel medium dry and then used some slightly watered down Liquitex Basics paint to paint right over where the gel medium had been stamped on.  To make the paint a little more translucent and allow the the resist to really show through while creating almost a watercolour effect, I used my Mini Mister to spray some water onto the surface of the Lutradur and used a paintbrush to move the water around and blend it with the paint.

Finally, I made  a sweet delicate butterfly to attach on the handle of the bag.  I used the ultra lightweight Lutradur for this and a template from here: http://www.cheekymagpie.com/?p=4874 I added colour to the Lutradur with paint, calligraphy ink, some oil pastels, and some Rub N Buff.  I sprayed again with some water from my Mini Mister to move the colour around a bit and get it blending into each other.

I strongly encourage you to check out a copy of Lesley Riley’s book and to get yourself some Lutradur so you can start playing too!