Fabric Paper Collage ATCs

Yes, I gave into the craze for making fabric paper! I first read about it back in 2004 in Beryl Taylor's article "Making Fabric from Paper" in the premiere issue of Cloth Paper Scissors and in her luscious book Mixed Media Explorations. There's a basic how-to on the Quilting Arts website. You start with a layer of muslin fabric and glue paper to that base and then paint, stencil, spritz & stamp layers of color on top of that, and then cut it up to use in collage that can be stitched! (The photos above right top to bottom show some of my layers of paper & color being added.)

I had experimented with the technique a little, making this mini art quilt in 2007, but never really embraced it. Then my friend Darlene did a demo for our local ATC group this past April and encouraged everyone else to try it. And my friend Sue gave me a copy of Kelli Perkins' book Stitch Alchemy, which featured colorful Day of the Dead fabric paper greeting cards.

So I decided to try the technique for my ATCs for the Day of the Dead swap at Illustrated ATCs. I made two pieces of fabric cloth about 11x18" each (or half a fat quarter) - one in red/pink/orange shades (see above) and one blue/green/yellow.

Then I cut out my shapes and tacked them down with a bit of glue to hold everything in place until I could stitch it.

For the borders, I used some colorful fibers handspun by my friend Kathi. Here are the four that I'm sending in for the swap:


Now I have to finish some fruit ATCs for the Milwaukee ATC group's September theme "Eat, Drink & Make Art." (You can see some of them under construction in the first photo above.)