Hi! I am Sherry Tyra and I would like to welcome you to my monkeysee.com video. We are covering low-cost artwork and in this section we are going to talk about fabrics and how to you use fabrics to create some really interesting artwork.
Fabrics are wonderful; they come in all different kinds of colors and designs and textures and they can really be beautiful when they are framed or framed and matted. Fabric can very inexpensive; you can find excellent decorative fabrics on sale at your local fabric store. They run promotional sale several times a year on those and usually all you need is about a quarter-yard of fabric to do some great artwork, even less sometimes. You can also find remnant fabrics, fabrics that are discontinued or they are trying to clear away or they are out of season, for a dollar a yard, just look around. Also, another place to find fabrics is these books here. These are books that decorators use; interior designers have them; custom fabric companies, custom upholstery companies and if you go to them or call them and say, do you have any fabric books that are outdated that you want to get rid of, a lot of times you can get these for absolutely nothing, free, which we love, free.
This here it is a kicky little fabric that I found; it is a decorative fabric, this was on sale for $4 a yard; not only was it $4 a yard, but all I needed was about a quarter yard and this is an example of two different ways to frame this fabric. This here is just a piece of fabric, stuck behind the glass. This here, I actually took scissors and cut out a portion of it and one little tip that is great, is there is this liquid and it is an anti-fray liquid. You can get this at fabric stores; you can get it at craft shop and after you cut out your design, all you do is squirt a little bit of this on the edge of the fabric and it stops that from fraying. It will not fray, it does not show, it dries clear and then you can place it within the frame. What we are going to do is I am going to take a piece of fabric that I got in this book here. This book I received from an upholster; it was discontinued fabric and it is great, it has wonderful fabrics in it with great textures, great color, wonderful depth, all kinds of great inspiration pieces in here to work from.
So, I cut this one piece of fabric out from this book and I am going to show you a little trick for framing it. Sometimes when you put fabric in a frame, it will tend to bunch up or wrinkle and you do not want it to do that. So, after you have cut your piece out of the book or taken a piece of fabric that you want to frame, you have determined where your pattern is going to be, take your fabric, turn it over, just stick it on a piece of newspaper or a drop cloth or something just to protect the surface that you are working on and you use spray adhesive, the spray adhesive is great. It gets real tacky, really quickly, but it enables you to work with the item. It is not stepping stone the first time you put it down, so if you need to adjust it, works great. So, I just spray over the fabric lightly and you take your piece of packing that you want to put the fabric on and just lightly lay it onto the packing and then from the center, just spread it out like this, from the center.
Make sure you have gotten all the wrinkles; if you have a little wrinkle you can get rid off, just lift up the edge, see it repositions itself and all you do is lay it flat. You take your matting and determine where you want this on your matting, which I have already predetermined. You place it in your frame; put the backing on your frame and again, beautiful, beautiful artwork. This looks like really expensive needlepoint, that is been framed. Next, we are going to do some work with stretcher frames and fabric.