Muslin is one of my favorite fabrics to froebel around with. It is very inexpensive, usually not more than a dollar a yard, and I like to buy a a whole bunch of it and then just do different things with it. At the moment I am trying to make a cloth journal and I wanted to see what I could do with ink markers. On the right side I just used different markers and then took wet Qtips and diluted the inks. On the right side I drew something simple and then also diluted the pink hair with water. After that, which is not very visible at all on the photograph, I spray painted the area with Pearl Cote Pearl Glaze which only made the cloth a bit firmer but did not do much else.
The 4x6 fabric postcard I made, was only so I could see what would happen if, again, I wrote on a piece of muslin, then glued it over printed paper and spray painted it. Only the paper took on the silvery shine, but it is not very obvious here. Made the writing run too, but it's just an experiment anyway.
I was curious what the effect of this paint would have on
something darker, so I went outside and sprayed it on the cover of our black Webber kettle. I am not particularly attached to this thing, so who cares. I did not even clean it. But woohoo, even with the dirt on it, it suddenly had a nice dark grayish silvery patina. We never use it, but it looks a lot more decorative now. A warning though: it looks just a bit prettier in the photo than in reality.
You may wonder why I bought the darn paint in the first place. I was thinking of making a mosaic of the shards of a very expensive coffeepot I accidentally cracked. It was from the Smithsonian shop, so it wasn't exactly cheap, and I wanted to preserve it somehow. I thought I would put the shards in a thin base of plaster of Paris paste in a frame and then use something to seal it and the very nice, but I believe now, not too knowledgeable young man at Michael's sold me this can, which, by the way, was locked up in a cabinet with an imposing chain and lock hanging from it. "Because of the huffers", he said and he had to explain that one to me. I never got past having a few doobies in the sixties. Anyway, I have the feeling this won't work on my coffeepot project, but I can always get something else; Michael's is just down the road.
Back to the 4x6, I also experimented with wrapping stones in wire. This was something new for me and I like it so far. Then I tied the whole thing up with bits of cord and tried to convey the thought that if we do not use our ink, or in other words, do not express ourselves in writing or in other creative ways, all the words and ideas and thoughts we have will become choked up, tied in knots, bound and unborn, and never see the light of day. Which would be sad, because expressing ourselves may help us understand ourselves, and each other, better.
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~ Tranquility and Tolerance ~
Alisa Burke's Recycled Paper Clutch, Series 400 
