Showing posts with label green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label green. Show all posts

Thursday, 10 May 2018

Just Powertex, No Strings Attached!





Just Powertex, No Strings Attached (Just a little lace) - by Abigail Lagden


Hello and welcome to May!! I can't believe how fast the year is passing, but it means it is time for another blog - Yay!

As always, the team at Powertex UK have put together another fantastic set of project packs, with a fabulous mdf base shape to work on and some really gorgeous embellishments. Here is the Guitar project pack that I used for this project - I just love the heart starbursts and the paper flowers give so much dimension to the project. 



First, I played with a rough layout for my project. This helps me gain an overall picture of how I'm going to construct my project, even if it changes as I start working. I decided to keep this project quite simple so the only extra thing I added were some pieces of cotton lace I had in my stash.



I wanted to use the hatched pattern embossed paper as an overall base texture for the body of the guitar, so I used the mdf shape as a template to draw around before carefully cutting the shape out.



I then attached the two pieces of mdf together using the rectangular piece of mdf on the back. The back of all three pieces were painted with bronze Powertex and then fixed together whilst wet. The whole of the back of the project was also painted over to produce a neat finish. This only takes a few minutes to dry to the point where you can turn it back over and start creating (a hairdryer can help speed up the process if you are impatient like me!).


Now for the fun part...

The wallpaper I cut out earlier was added first using bronze Powertex as a glue on the back. Then the front was also painted over.



The small mdf plaques were attached to the neck of the guitar to provide some extra depth before I added some lace over the top of them along the neck.












Two pieces of different cotton lace were added across the body of the guitar. When adding lace that I want to meet the edges of a project I always use a piece that is a little bit longer than needed and trim is once it is on the project. This is because a lot of cotton lace tends to shrink a little when you coat it with Powertex, so if you cut it to the exact size first then it often ends up too short.



The embellishments were then all added by coating with Powertex and pressing into position. Once done, the project was left to dry overnight.



Once dry, I used different blends of ultramarine blue, turquoise, green, lilac and white powercolor pigments using a dry brushing technique. And finally a quick brush using rich gold colortricx to give it a lift and a shimmer.






Hope you like it...
You can follow more of what I get up to with my Powertex creations and workshops on my facebook page.

Until next time, Abs x

Tuesday, 5 September 2017

Sophie's Summer Super Hero Project - Part 2

Sophie's Summer Super Hero Project - Part 2

Well September is here already and Sophie's Super Hero has been updated.  I can't believe the summer holidays went by so quickly but Sophie and I had so much fun with this.  

There are still another 2 or 3 stages to go so we may need to drop "summer"!!

After a little holiday in Weymouth, the excitement of a new baby in the family and a party or two, we did stage 2.  For this we started with a cotton vest which Sophie rubbed Ivory Powertex into, OK i did give her a little help! 

We also worked Powertex into a length of cotton t-shirt fabric. Once it was well covered, we eased the vest over the body and then draped the fabric around the hip to make a short skirt.  (There will be another layer in stage 3.)


We then started the first of the decoration or embellished layer.  For this we needed purple Powertex.  Sophie suggested mixing blue and red Powertex together, but it wasn't quite dark enough so we also added a tiny bit of black.  

We coated some strips of lace and a leather belt which we draped onto Teleporter's hips (recycling is so much fun with Powertex!). We also worked some yellow Powertex for a second decorative strip of lace.


Next we wanted to add the green shoulder pieces and buttons.  If you can remember from Sophie's plan, Teleporter has two buttons, one of which has a secret power.

We mixed some ivory and green Powertex and worked this into some woven cotton dishcloth fabric.  We also coated two slices of wood to be the base of the buttons. There were some great embellishments on the belt which Sophie painted with yellow Powertex too.



That all took 2-hours and so we stopped there ready to have more fun with the final layer of embellishments next time.  
I'm so impressed by Sophie's concentration, I forget she is only 7-years old sometimes! The fun and laughter we have is fantastic and that includes seeing who gets the most stray Powertex on our arms, I think there was a splodge or two that she managed to get on my face too!!!

Have fun creating with Powertex and we will be back with the next stage soon!

Fi xx