Back to bread tags

I've been doing some experimenting for a book cover, with Puff Paint.  One of the things I tried out doesn't look anything like a book cover surface, but definitely reminds me of a birds nest.  It is on a base of cotton fabric, then I put on some thread waste - glued with PVA.  Next I added dobs of Puff Paint, in yellow and blue.  Bread tags, most flat but some already made into bead shapes, were added where the puff paint was, so it would puff around them when heatgunned.  A sprinkle of silver and blue embossing powder topped it off.  When the paint was dry, I heat gunned it to curl the flat bread tags.  Well, mostly the flat ones wouldn't curl because the paint held them in place - but the fibres in the thread waste started to smoke!  I quickly stopped because I didn't want a fire and made a mental note not to heat gun fibres like this.  It is actually too thick for a book cover but the texture does remind me of a birds nest.

Bread tag nest 

©Christine Linton

Experimenting with heat gun

Using my new toy the heat gun, I picked out several layers of plastic bags from my overflowing plastic stash bags, fused them with the iron and then heat gunned them to distress; then I looked at the holes and realised it needed another colour behind to show them up, so I ironed a blue bag on the back.  I don't actually like it but it gives me some experience in this technique and I can see the potential when I start including sythetic textiles in with the plastic - the next step.  The layers then will look quite interesting.  It's going to be really hot all week in Adelaide (33 degrees to 36 all week) so don't know when I will feel like heating up the room again.