Craft Chi

Here’s a nice, easy way to print wrapping paper or even fabric. I don’t know whether these would be considered relief or collagraph prints, maybe both. You could also carve a wooden rolling pin if you desired. But this way I can remove the cork and reuse the rolling pin. Anyway, here’s what’cha need to make some rolling pin prints:

Materials:

- Rolling Pin (got mine at Ikea for a few bucks) - if you get a wooden one like mine, you may want to seal it, but I just left mine au naturale. You could also use PVC pipe or cardboard mailing tube if you want thicker/thinner cylinder

- cork contact paper or foam sheets with adhesive back

-scissors and xacto knife and cutting mat

-measuring tape

-sharpie

- long piece of plexi glass for rolling ink out onto should be at least the length and width of your rollling pi

- water-based block printing ink or acrylic paints (or oil, just use vegetable oil to clean plexi and they take longer to dry). I like the block printing inks because they are thicker, more pigmented and have slightly slower drying time then plain acrylics. This gives me a few minutes to arrange stuff when working. If printing on fabric make sure your using proper paint or ink.

- brayer

- paper or fabric to print onto

First, measure your rolling pin. Measure the circumference and length.

Then, cut a piece of cork contact to the size of the rolling pin

Draw your design on the cork with a sharpie. I like designs that are interconnected because they look cool when printed, but you could certainly cut out individual shapes and that would look killer too.

Cut out using scissors and xacto blade. I found the scissors worked great for cutting away large pieces and the xacto blade worked well for cutting out the small bits.

Remove the adhesive from the back of the cork. Arrange the design flat with the sticky side up. (Make sure that the design fits within the size of your rolling pin). Roll the pin over the design so that it sticks to the pin. Roll the pin back forth and put plenty of pressure on the pin to make sure the cork is well adhered.

Fill in gaps. If you find that the rolling pin is tilting and the wood is touching your surface, you can cut some shapes to fill in the gaps. Like I did with the flower below.

Roll out ink. Squeeze ink out onto plexi in a long strip. Use the brayer to roll the ink and evenly spread it on your plate. You will need quite a bit of ink because the cork really soaks it up.

Ink up your design. One thing to remember when inking up is to pick up the roll in one direction. Turn the roller and ink the other direction. This way you get as much as ink as evenly as possible on the cork.

Print your design. It’s a good idea to practice a few times on newsprint or some scrap before printing on your good paper.

Hang dry your prints. I used this kraft paper on a roll. It was curling up on me so I had to tape it up. You can also use a hair dryer to speed drying.

A word about clean-up. Another nice thing about the water-based block printing inks is that I can easily rinse my plexi and brayer off in the sink. To clean the rolling pin, you SHOULDN’T put under running water if you want your design to stay in place. The water soaks into the wood and your adhesive starts to give. This caused a petal off one of my flowers to fall off. I found it worked better to roll the pin over some damp paper towels or newsprint. However, when I was ready to remove the design, I just placed the rolling pin under the water and it slipped right off, allowing me to reuse the rolling pin.

Hey Everyone, sorry that I have been out of the loop for a bit, but I’m back at least for the moment. I actually made this craft back in May and am just now typing it up. Aye, busy summer. Enjoy!

Materials:

- Standard Wire Hanger

-Piece of cardboard 6 x 15 (to stabalize the bottom)

- Fabric

-Standard sewing stuff

-Embellishments (ribbon, buttons etc)

-Clothespins or something you want to store in this tent (be creative!)

Here are the fabric pieces you will need for a standard 15-inch wide(5 inches from neck to bottom) hanger:

-2 pieces 16 x 6, for triangle pieces at top of hanger (mine are denim) Mark Pieces A

-2 pieces 8.5 x 12, for front opening pieces (mine have a clothespin appliqué on one side and stamps on the other) Mark pieces B

- 1 piece 12 x 16, for back (this and the front pieces are linen on mine, all other pieces are denim) Mark pieces C

- 2 pieces 7 x 12, for sides Mark pieces D

- 1 piece 7 x 16.5, for the bottom Mark piece E

***** Use 3/8-inch, Seam allowance on all seams, unless otherwise indicated ****

Step 1 - Trace/Cut Hanger shape

Stack pieces marked A (right sides facing). Place hanger on top leaving 1/2-inch space below bottom of hanger. Also leave 1/2 inch on sides of hanger. Trace around the triangle part of the hanger leaving the hook part sticking out. Cut 1/2-inch from the angled sides and neck as shown. No need to cut sides or bottom!

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Step 2 - Sew the Sides and Neck

Pin. Sew up the sides, angled sides and neck leaving top open, and turn inside out and press. Set aside.

**It’s a good idea to make sure this fits around your hanger before you continue. It should be snug. ***Also, don’t be worried about finishing the top. Luckily we don’t have to worry about making this comfortable for the hanger.

Step 3 - Make opening Flaps

Stack pieces marked B with right sides together. Using a ruler mark 2.5 inches from the top and bottom. Sew from edge to mark. Press seams open and stitch down close to edge.

Step 4 - Attach side pieces

Pin side pieces (marked D) to back piece (marked C) with right sides together. Sew sides. Then pin side pieces to front (marked B, piece with opening that you just created) and sew. You should now have a box shape that has no top or bottom yet.

Step 5 - Create side pleats

Align front and back pieces (still working inside-out) with side seams together. Fold sewn side pieces outward, in-half and iron. Fold ironed half of side over the front piece and pin the fold to the front piece.

Step 6 - Attach to upper triangle piece.

Insert the triangle piece that you made earlier in between the front and back pieces. **Insert triangle upside down and right-side out as shown in picture.*** Align seams and pin all around. **Make sure not pin your triangle closed*** Sew triangle to top edge of box, sewing side folds down where they are pinned.

Step 7 - Attach Bottom

Pin piece E to the bottom of your tent with right sides together. Sew around pivoting around corners.

Turn inside out by pulling the triangle piece through the opening. Then insert your cardboard piece and viola you are done! Embellish and enjoy!

Let me know if you encounter any problems with the measurements, I made this back in May and my notes are a bit sketchy. I’m 99% sure of all the pieces except the bottom piece which I seem to remember had to be adjusted and I can’t remember if I made a note of it. Luckily, it is an easy piece to fix since it is the last piece added.

Okay, so in the last tutorial, inkjet transfer stamping, I said I would post another tutorial on how I made the frame brush. I know there must be about billion different ways to do this in PS, but this is how I went about making mine. Also, this will give me a chance to show off my screen-capturing skeels which several readers have been kind enough to teach me how to do that. Thank you! (If you don’t know on a Mac it’s Cmd-shift-3 for a screen capture and Cmd-shift-4 for a selection). Okay, so here goes:

Make brushes to make your frame brush I just made some foliage brushes by capturing some nature outside. I just walked to the mailbox and back and got some pretty nice shots. So first, open your photo.

Resize the images to a manageable size using your crop tool or going to Image>Image Size. **Remember, a brush must be no bigger than 8 inches in height or width at a resolution of 300. ** Then, apply threshold to the pic which converts the image to solid black and white. Go to Image>Adjustments>Threshold and then adjust to your liking.

Then, define as a brush by going to Edit>Define Brush Preset.

Repeat these steps to make several brushes from your various nature photos. Then, save the set of brushes by opening the Preset Manager. Go to Edit>Preset Manager. Select brushes in the drop down and then select the brushes you just made and click Save Set.

Now, finally we are ready to make the frame brush! Hippee!

Open a new file. I made mine 8 by 8 inches at the 300 DPI.

Make a selection. Select the Marquee tool and then make a rectangle that leaves plenty of room around it. Then select the inverse by using the shortcut Command-Shift-I.

Load brushes. First, make sure that your default brushes are loaded by selecting the brush tool and then, clicking on the brush selection drop down menu at the top menu bar. Then, click on the small triangle in this brush selection tool window. Then select the Reset brushes from this menu. Click append to add the default brushes to your brush selection.

**Also, make sure that the custom brushes you made are available. To load them, select Load from the same drop down menu shown above.**

Select a basic brush with a texture that you like.

Trace around the inverted-selected rectangle.

Stamp custom brushes. Use custom brushes like stamps, placing images around the traced frame. Rotate the brushes by selecting Window>Brushes and then selecting Brush Tip shape in the left menu. Hold down the shift key while turning the arrow to turn incrementally.

When you are satisfied with the brush, define it as a brush the same way you did with the custom brushes.