Fabric Paper Using Tyvek Backgrounds

To make these fabric paper backgrounds I used Tyvek – you can use cotton and muslin too but I dont have any – *sob* – so I have to use tyvek.

Basic Instructions:

Get a sheet of tyvek or muslin or open weave cotton, place it onto some plastic (I used carrier bags), smear on el cheapo white school glue all over one side, then cover with printed tissue paper, apply another layer of glue, cover with a sheet of plain tissue paper, more glue over the top of that, then add paint or colour medium of your choice. Let air dry overnight 0 or longer and youve got yourself a lovely wrinkly sheet of colourful fabric paper.

Sources For Printed Tissue for Fabric Paper:

Printed napkins or serviettes, printed tissue papers – 7 Gypsies have a range of printed tissue papers, also check out very thin paper bags with patterns on them or paper used in florists to wrap flowers in. Any store which sells handmade gifts usually have nice paper printed bags – I’ve collected them for years – did you know you can iron the paper bags to make transfers of the patterns onto paper?

For my backgrounds I used both printed napkins and tissue papers, after reading how some members where having problems applying the colour to the final layer because the tissue paper was tearing, I decided to cut out the middleman and I mixed a little bit of acrylic paint into some pva glue and painted it onto the final layer as a glaze – less mess that way and you only need to add one final layer!

Heres my backgrounds, click on the pictures if you wanna see them bigger:

Uncoloured Fabric Paper – I like how this looked without adding additional colour to it, the colours you see are from the actual tissue and napkins:

Lutradur Background Experiments

Ive been experimenting with a pack of black lutradur sheets I had in my stash for a swap I signed up for, Ive been meaning to use my lutradur for ages but never got round to it. Adrienne announced a lutradur swap on UKArtSwaps which caught my eye – I now had an excuse to dig out my lutradur and actually USE it for a change 🙂

Heres a couple of backgrounds I did with the lutradur, havent made anything with most of them yet though! My next step with the background is to experiment with distressing them with my heat tool!

Dont forget to click all the pictures you see if you want to see bigger images!

Lutradur Metallic Rubbings:

I made this background using a sheet of black lutradur and a stamping mat to make a rubbing using metallic oil pastels. I love how the pastels pop out on the dark background

Lutradur Squirty Painted Background:

Various paints and colours where brushed and squirted directly onto the lutradur to make a painterly background, I then placed another sheet of lutradur on top of the painted sheet and pressed them together, then pulled them apart to make a print of the background. Both backgrounds are below (click for bigger)

Lutradur Resist Background:

I made this background by first stamping a repeat pattern all over the sheet with metallic paint, once it was dry I rubbed over the top with another colour to make a kind of resist effect.

Lutradur Oil Pastel Background:

I used metallic oil pastels gently rubbed over the black lutradur to bring out the patterns of the fibers. I love the feel of this background

Lutradur Melted Oil Pastels Background:

This is one of my favourite backgrounds, I used various colours of both metallic and regular oil pastels to make this background, I used a hot encaustic wax iron to smear hot wax across the lutradur and added little droplets of wax to add accents.