Playing with Tyvek

I've been wanting to dabble more with ironed tyvek, and was happy to see that a few of the current challenges with a "Spring" theme might suit.....

I also wanted to play along with the current Mixed Media Mojo challenge April Fun, which would require an up cycled bit as well as some metal.  Hmmmm.

Up cycle I could do, as some of the online retailers I purchase supplies from use US Priority mail envelopes as packing, and these are made of tyvek.  Metal..... hmmmm.

Then, while poking around on the net I came across a fun tutorial on tyvek beads..... wrapped in thin metal wire with some beading.  Perfect!

I started by cutting apart one of my saved envelopes.  I knew I wanted my beads to be smaller, so I made the pieces shorter than you see in the video.   




I did use the metallic paint approach, just to see how it looked, and created a blend across one of the longer pieces of cut tyvek.  I chose to color both sides, as I did not like the white look in the tutorial, because I would not be stringing these together which would probably disguise that white core.

Once dry, I cut this into smaller pieces, on the angles....

and rolled them individually on a bamboo skewer, starting from the wider end, and pinning the thinner end once done.

Then I heated them, while on the skewer.  And, voila!  As you can see, any printing that showed through the paint is no longer visible once the tyvek shrinks.

 Here you can see just how small they are - those bead tubes are around six inches long at most.

Then I wrapped them with thin wire and some beads..... I am not too good at this, but eventually I got some beads to the look I wanted..... and decided to quit while I was ahead, lol!

On to the larger background piece..... which I painted with Golden fluid acrylics in a rainbow assortment of colors.  I had these paints from my workshop with Carol Nelson, but you could certainly use regular acrylic paints, or perhaps even alcohol inks.....

Once again, I painted both sides...

I made several pieces as I was playing around with the paints and wasn't sure what would turn out ok.   The side you heat with the iron or heat gun will bubble forward (so the other side becomes the pebbled side).  Eventually, I settled on this side as my "front" - I wasn't concerned about the red stripe as I knew I could cut it off if I couldn't get it to roll to the back, and I really loved the stone-like  quality of the paint.

Here it is after the first pass with the iron.... I had it too hot which is why I got such large holes on the left.  I use a small craft iron, but any iron with a teflon surface will work.  I also iron directly on my craft sheet on my table, but you can also use an ironing board, though I would protect the surface with a craft sheet.  I started by using one of those fold-up ironing cloths that many quilters use, but it proved too soft for my liking, and was inhibiting all the interesting bubbles, pebbles and crevasses I like to see.

Here is the back of the same piece.  It is also quite interesting - I just happen to like to other side better, particularly for what I had in mind.  If you look at the piece of tyvek in my last post, though, you will see that I used "the back" in the collage piece.

I ended up ironing this a bit more to get even finer detail in some of those plainer areas throughout.  I wanted lots of nooks and crannies....

Now what?!  I tried a couple of softly colored backgrounds for a more natural look, but the piece disappeared into these.... so I ended up using the back of a canvas panel.  First, I stenciled it with flexible molding paste using the Tim Holtz Flourish stencil.  And then I painted the whole thing  heavily with Distress Antique Linen paint.  That ended up with a lovely pale green cast once dry, but I wanted more of a cream look, so I sprayed Distress Picket Fence over it with lots of water and my heat gun.

Next, I placed my beads as though they were rising to the top, placing the ones with the metal and small beads toward the top..... and the others as just below as though not quite "cooked"....  I used hot glue to attach them all, as the tyvek is quite dimensional and I wanted to make sure everything stuck. That is also how I attached the base piece to the canvas.

Then I mixed my remaining small bead mix with matte medium and slathered them on to hit those crevasses.... and went to bed hoping for the best.

And yay - it worked!

I cut an older Sizzix label from a mop up tag, and stamped it with the word "renew" - as this piece reminds me of plants moving up through the soil toward the sun in this new season.... and also my ideas as they bubble up from wherever they originate, lol!

To tie in the frame, I rubbed the higher areas with Treasure Gold in Spanish Topaz, a beautiful copper color.

 And here is the finished piece.

Thank you so much for stopping by - and if you've time, please do leave a comment as I always love to hear your thoughts! xxx Lynn

I will enter this into these challenges!
Mixed Media Mojo April Fun
Stamps & Stencils Trash to Treasure 
Country View Challenges Spring
A Vintage Journey Spring is in the Air