Mini Fabric Collage Swap

The Winter Swap on Linda’s 'A Swap For All Seasons' blog was to make one mini fabric collage measuring 5” x 7”.  Linda paired up all the participants and advised us that as long as the base was fabric, we could build from there use any medium as long as it was whatever we thought our partner would like.

My partner for this swap was Hope of Pixie’s Ponderings who now lives here in the UK in Lincolnshire but is originally from (as she puts it) ‘the wilds of Northwest Arkansas’ in the USA. Hope described her style as eclectic and gave me quite a lot of information as to what she liked. I narrowed it down for the collage to ‘toadstools, owls and natured-inspired stuff’ She told me there were no colours she disliked and that she leaned towards whimsical in style.

Armed with this information this is what I made

I started off with a cotton then sturdy webbing base (as described in a previous post). I built up a landscape with various colours of organza fabric which were held into place with the tree which I machine stitched on.

The tree is brown felt cut from Tim Holtz’ Alterations Sizzix ‘Branch Tree’ die. I hand stitched the flowers with beaded centres on and the cute little wooden owl buttons (I painted in their eyelids as they looked a bit scary otherwise). I added Glossy Accents to their eyes too so they look all twinkling in the moonlight! The moon is a piece of silver ribbon highlighted with some Ranger’s Stickles (Crystal colour) and I also highlighted some of the branches of the tree with it to look light moonlight. I suppose the background should have been darker if it’s night time, but this is a whimsical piece so I think I can get away with it!

The (intentionally) wonky picket fence around the tree is a piece of lace cut from Tim Holtz’ Alterations Sizzix ’On The Edge’ die called ’On The Fence’. I wasn’t sure if lace was going to work but I was pleased with the result. The toadstool is another wooden button which I coloured with paint and more Stickles and added Glossy Accents to the top.

I finished it off with some assorted fibres and lace.

Here’s what the back looks like. I made an image transfer onto fabric using Golden’s Regular Gel (matte) medium and a print onto copier paper with my inkjet printer.

 

I did intend to use the image transfer somewhere on the front of the collage, but as it evolved there was no place for it, so on the back it went - and it became a useful place for my details!

   

We were to leave our pieces unfinished so our partner could decide how they wanted to use them.

I made a card to go with the collage with an appropriate verse (photocopied from a book of music and suitably aged with some Distress Inks).

You may be able to see another wooden owl button in it's un-painted state - with the scary eyes!

I’m pleased with how the collage turned out and am so glad that Hope likes it too (phew, that's a relief!) I’m looking forward to receiving mine in return.

Thanks Linda for organising another great swap, I really enjoyed this one!