Eucalyptus Paper - stage one
I’ve been making fabric-paper or stitch-paper over the past weeks using decorative napkins acquired in an online napkin swap. I have tried a couple of different fabric-paper/stitch-paper methods and the two that are most reliable for me are
Kelli Perkin‘s method and Beryl Taylor’s method.
Caution: You need to know for any of these stitch-papers/fabric-papers, Elmer’s glue does NOT work.
Back to the subject at hand; while making the yummy stitch paper and practicing my free-motion stitching, I was also contemplating a package of thin Eucalyptus bark sent by my sister a month or so ago. The bark ranges in color from light orange to shades of blu-ish grey and has layers and layers of paper thin skin making up the tree bark.
I have fooled around with the bark, peeling apart layers and breaking off smaller pieces and generally relegating it to the back burner until a flash of insight helps me figure out what to do with it. Suddenly it occurred to me that I was stalling – all there was to do was to wade in and try out some things to see what would work – duh.
Since I already had all the materials out I decided to try the stitch-paper method of layering; cloth, glue solution, BARK, glue solution, tissue and glue solution, to see if that would hold everything together. I also need the transparent quality of this method in order for the unique beauty of the bark to show through. Also the end material needs to have enough flexibility so the bark won’t shred or sliver all over the place once it’s in use. So far this method is working remarkably well. It also allows me to preserve the raggedy, but most delicious, edges of the bark.
Bird collaged on eucalyptus on blue background paper
My intention is to make this into a journal cover or maybe a scrapbook cover as it will be a 12″ X 12″ piece. It needs to be that big because, as I said, I love the ragged edges and don’t want to square up the piece. I intend to add shadows with pastel, stitching and more collage as well as other embellishments as befitting the piece as I go along.
If I ever get the binding machine I think I will custom-bind this with pages divided up so there are specific places for pictures and for writing…stay tuned!
