Creative Expressions Tuesday

Painted Bag

Today I am going to show you how I decorated a plain canvas bag using Creative Expressions Lustre Fabric Paints . These are lovely thick paints which dry with a great sparkle but I found that even when diluted with water they still sparkle . I also found that they dry a little paler than when wet .
I decorated both sides of the bag and put a piece of card with cling film covering it inside the bag to protect the side that was not being worked on .

Dampen the fabric with water . Each colour was thinned with water before applying randomly to the bag . I started with Antique Copper .

I then continued adding colours randomly . I used Royal Purple, Sea Green and Golden Lime . As the colours are applied they can be blended together where they meet . Dry thoroughly.

I then applied paint through stencils . These were all That Special Touch 6 X 6 masks --- Small Polka Dot , Peacock Mask and All Stirred Up .

I started with the polka dots and a mix of Atlantic Blue and Graphit Noir , creating dots randomly on 

the bag . Next I mixed Golden Lime , Sea Green and Atlantic Blue to make a brighter blue/green and 

stencilled the peacock feathers onto the bag extending the design up the bag .

Finally, using Pearl Lustre I added the swirls from all stirred up .

I then used stamps from the Creative Expressions Clear stamp sets -  Summer Meadow for the vine effect and the flowers from Wild Flowers . I used Graphite Noir paint to stamp with ( apply with cut and dry foam and wash the stamp as soon as you have finished ) . These paints stamp well and the image is clear , I created a vine- like effect by repeat stamping as shown .

Using the flower I added to the vines . The stem of the stamp can be bent gently in different directions to creat variety.  Leave some spaces for the butterflies!

Here you can see how I have coloured the handles and extended the stencilling onto the handles .

Finally stamp butterflies from the Butterfly Splash set . This shows the finished bag from one side and the next picture shows the other side 

Here is part of the bag with a tag made to match tied on with twine .

The tag is made from greyboard cut to size and painted with white gesso. I then decorated some fabric in the same way as the bag and adhered it to the tag . The flower is made from more painted fabric rolled and twisted. Add other decoration as needed to finish the tag .

As you can see these paints are lovely and can be used in different ways . Combined with the amazing silhouette stamps the results are clear . I hope this will give you some inspiration  about decorating fabric .

Items from Creative Expressions used to decorate this bag include :--

Lustre Fabric Paints ---  French Pearl, Graphite Noir ! Atlantic Blue , Golden Lime , Royal Purple , Antique Copper and Sea Green .

Creative Expressions Clear Stamp Sets --- Wildflowers , Summer Meadow and Butterfly Splash.

That Special Touch Masks --- Small Polka Dots , Peacock Mask and All Stirred Up.

If you want to see what other members of the DT team are doing please go to 

Creative Expressions