DT Pre-retreat challenge!!

Yep, more retreat stuff!

Prior to the retreat, Sarah set the DT a challenge - to decorate a Prima Canvas Apron to wear for the whole weekend.

I loved the apron but must admit, as papercrafts is my main "interest" shall we say (in other words, my only skill, if you could even call it that!), I was absolutely stumped as to how I could create anything that would last the weekend without getting torn or falling off...... I had a hunch that repro Herma was not going to be up to this challenge!

I resolved to using my class for inspiration, and decided on a large felt embellishment and drew the colour scheme from the papers we would be using, and here is my finished result.

Here's a close up of the decorated pocket panel:

So, it wasn't exactly rocket science, but I thought I'd share with you how I created the look, cos I'm nice like that ;)

I started by masking off all round the pocket quickly with thick parcel tape, and added my main word using some American Crafts stickers.

As the apron was made of heavy canvas, I thought it was perfect for a bit of acrylic paint treatment, and used turquoise and blue paint straight from the tube, spreading and mixing it across the apron with a spatula.  I wanted it to look like it was being spread from the one side where my main embellishment was going to be (the same as I cluster my items when I scrapbook teehee), so used the paint heavily on the left side of the pocket and then spreading it out more thinly towards the right side.

To add the splattered effects, I "stamped" using the metal rim of the tube of paint itself for large circles and dabs, and added smaller dots and spots with wrong end of a paintbrush:

Once all the paint was dry, I carefully peeled away the letter stickers to reveal the untouched canvas below. To complete my design I created flowers and detail on the butterflies wings from the papers that were used in my class, and clustered them with some buttons, prima flowers and a bling swirl created with my bejewller and hot fix rhinestones. I stamped the smaller words with Stazon - it worked a treat!

And the solution to the herma fixing quandary? Good ole thick PVA! I used it to attach the ribbon trims too as I got bored stitching all five of them on by hand!

The flowers I made really were quite bulky and I wondered if they'd fall off over the weekend with all the battering the apron would take, but the PVA held fast and my apron totally stayed in tack. Plus I had the bonus of peeling all the pva off my fingers afterwards - mmmmmmmmm!

Just in case you noticed the teeny butterflies I stamped along the waistband and frilled hem - I made the stamp myself as I didn't have one small enough from some spare red rubber on an old stamp using my butterfly paper punch. Yes, it was incredibly fiddly and time consuming, and no, I won't be doing it again, but hey, I know own a custom butterfly rubber stamp lol!!!

Each apron by each DT member was totally different.......take a look here to see what the girls came up with :)

As always, thanks for looking xxx