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Thursday, 8 September 2011

My creative space - silk paper

I've been making silk paper (silk fusion) today.  Usually I try and make it as thin and wispy as I can but today I wanted to make it a little thicker.  The first thing is to lay out some silk fibres onto a piece of netting - I have 2 (ish) layers of undyed tussah silk fibres here.


Then another piece of net on top to hold it all in place, and rub dilute silk paper medium (you can use dilute PVA or wallpaper paste too) through the net so it soaks the silk fibres - I use an old stencil brush for this.  Turn the sandwich over and rub from the other side too until all the fibres are holding together.


I decided it still wasn't thick enough, so I folded it in half.

Once it was dry, I cut some heart shapes out of it.  I love the texture and sheen of silk paper - what I have in mind are some simple hanging decorations to show it off.


See what other people have been doing in their creative spaces.
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4 comments:

  1. Amy, the Greedy Crocodile8 September 2011 at 18:38

    This is lovely Helen, I love all your different papers, and the hanging decorations are really special :-)

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  2. Anonymous8 September 2011 at 22:30

    Ooo that's cool! Never seen that before. I have a big stash of loose, unspun dyed silk threads which my grandmother donated to me which I'm assuming could be used for this? I've been layering them over wet acrylic but hadn't thought about making paper from them. Great idea!

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  3. Helen Smith9 September 2011 at 08:31

    Thank you!

    Lianne, I don't see why not, have a go! It's not really 'paper' as such, more a stiff papery feeling fabric, great for stitching into.

    But now I'm going to try drawing on a few scraps and see what happens...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous9 September 2011 at 09:53

    It looks really nice, and fun :) /Limar

    ReplyDelete

Helen Smith, artist and maker in glass, print and stitch.