Oh, The Paintstiks Are Fun!!

     Maggie was here a few weekends ago and helped me try out the Shiva Paintstiks. They are as nice as I had hoped. I definately need more experience. We were experimenting on cheap, thin muslin.

     I started out using a butterfly stencil, first as a rubbing (didn't work too well), then as a stencil. It was so awful, I threw it away. Nothing but a smear.

     So I looked around and found my daughters' old baby shoes to use as a rubbing. It sort of worked out. I think the problem here is that the shoe is old and curved on the bottom. I wanted to take off the wrapper and use the side of the paintstik, but thought better of that. Chaa-Ching.

     I've had this hummingbird stencil for quite a while, never using it. It worked great. I used Q-tips to get in the lines. The irridescent colors were great for the hummingbird.

     Maggie used freezer paper to make stencils. A picture can be drawn on the matte side of the freezer paper, then the design is cut out. Be sure to think "mirror image" when designing, cutting and painting your stencil. The new stencil is ironed, shiney side down on to fabric. It temporarily stays in place while the painting is done.

     Maggie did a good job with her dove and heart design stencil, but she really hit it when she made this mermaid stencil. We could already tell this was going to be good so I found some black cotton fabric for her to use. She saved the stencil for me to try it.

The hair might look a little odd due to a fold in the fabric. That will iron out.
 (And I'm still using my cell phone
to take pictures. She's gorgeous!)

     I made a stencil also. I really like it, but it doesn't compare to Miss Maggie's.

     Next we should try an Elvis stencil on velvet. HAHA. Seriously, wouldn't that be pretty cool?!

     The heat setting directions said to let the paint dry for 24 hours, or if the paint is applied especially heavy, let it dry for 3 to 5 days. Besides heat setting with an iron, it can also be heat set in your clothes dryer for 30 minutes. I wanted to set it with my iron, but I couldn't get it to work. (It's been dropped a few times so it's reliability is ify. It will work the previous time and the next time it won't heat at all. But then it might the next time. Do you suppose I need a new one? Oh, Saaantaaa!)  Our examples ended up drying for about 3 weeks, when I could finally get around to it AND the iron would heat up. I was a little disappointed with it. It seems the red & yellow paints bled oil into the fabric, even after 3 weeks. I don't think I/we applied the paint terribly heavy. Here's my spiral. Suppose it could be the cheap muslin, just too thin?

     Here's the center heart of Maggie's heart with doves stencil. I didn't show the birds. They were blue with the center of their bodies a little on the silver side. They didn't bleed any oil, but the red heart did.

     I noticed while heat setting Maggie's mermaid that I could smell the oil and could see just a little on the black, but not enough to show. The black was a much better fabric than the cheap muslin. Don't have it figured out yet.


     I found this scarf weight fabric and thought it would be beautiful with a little gold or bronze/copper paint added. I don't know exactly the fiber content. It was on the $1.99 table. At that price you can't go wrong experimenting. The store owner burned a little piece. It sort of melted, but some of the threads turned to ash. I will be washing, drying and ironing little pieces to see what happens before wasting any paint on it. Even without adding any paint I will still be making some scarves with it.

      Like I said at the beginning, I need to practice more. And will be. (As soon as I get some projects finished in the IMMEDIATE future - there's a grandbaby coming.)