Challenge #11 - Tag, You're It!

It's time to try my hand again over at Craft Hoarders Anonymous. Gloria and the Design Team have wonderful inspiration pieces, and you can see all of these tags, tagging along, here.

Every once in a while, I change gears in my crafting life. When my paper creations are not so creative, I take a break from them, and for the last few weeks, that means I've been mucking about with fabric, specifically, some version of fabric postcards.

Tags are one of my most favorite formats for mucking about.  (If my experiment fails, no biggie; if it works, there's another tag to use.) Just so happens, that with my embroidery, I was experimenting with seam binding and (drum roll please), my Spectrum Noir markers. My craft expense account is not huge, so both a roll of white (or off white) Hug Snug seam binding, and Spectrum Noir markers (you can buy them in six packs and make a large starter set without selling the farm or any animals you happen to have on it), are right up my alley.

The test: Can rayon seam binding be used instead of silk, for ribbon embroidery? What do you think? The rose in the lower right hand corner is silk, and the other two are the seam binding.

Well, the seam binding isn't quite as fluid as the silk, but I really like the result, and I LOVE the affordability.  Here's where the markers come in. After I completed the two spider web roses, I took a Q-tip soaked with alcohol, slathered the seam binding roses until they were "wet", and touched my Spectrum Noir markers to the ribbon, here and there, making sure the center of the flower was the deepest hue. (You could also do this alteration to the seam binding before doing the embroidery. A flat paintbrush loaded with alcohol, or simply soaking the ribbon in alcohol, would be the best way to go here. Then add as much, and as many colors and variations as you like with the markers.)

Well, now I'm back to playing with paper for a while, and hope that my fabric entry is in keeping with the rules of the CHACB. One last note: The "spider web rose" is very easy to make, and it is wonderful on all manner of paper art. You only need a base material that can have a needle pass though it, thread, and ribbon. The larger the rose, the wider the ribbon should be, and the more flexible the ribbon, the more natural it will look. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Hopefully, there is a "seam binding rose of many colors" in your future too. Thanks for visiting.