Second Thursday Tutorial: a baker's dozen

 

I've been creating Second Thursday Tutorials since January, 2016.  I thought I would share a review of some of my favorite tutorials.  These are all located on my Tutorials page.

From 2016. 

This is from 2016, and one of my favorite tutorials.

I made my own Baker's twine from crochet thread I would never use as crochet, several index cards, and colored Sharpies.   Although more time consuming than anything, the results are worth it.

I must have been on a mission to use my Sharpies back in 2016, because I created another tutorial using them.

Using Sharpies and 91% Isopropyl alcohol on a cotton/poly blend bed sheet,

I created flowers

 I could use for a fabric cover for a scrappy journal. 

 

From 2017.

  This was the year I began experimenting with dyeing fabric.  My first experiment involved juice I siphoned from black beans.

I was quite impressed and pleased with the results I got.

The following month, I decided to dye fabric (an old bed sheet) with turmeric.

I was even happier with how the turmeric dyed fabric turned out.

From 2018.

 

I showed three ways to turn those wonderful 3-ply napkins we all love into ways to use them in your altered books and art journals. 

I used Pellon (also known an Wonder Under) which I thought worked best, cling wrap which didn't work well at all, and freezer paper which worked great, but eliminated the transparent element of the napkin.

That same year, I showed various resists, including vaseline/petroleum jelly, a bleach pen, salt, and 91% Isopropyl Alcohol.

Here I've used dye ink, 91% Isopropyl Alcohol, and salt to create this background.  When dry, the salt brushes away easily, or can be captured and used again. 

 

From 2019.

I spent two sessions dyeing cabbage.  I showed how different mordants 

affected the outcome of the dye color in the fabric. 

Another project included flower pounding of my lovely irises.

This fabric was nicely mottled.

This fabric was even prettier because it picked up some of the green from the stems.

From 2020.

I got these gels at a huge discount some years before and decided it was time to use and compare them.  This turned out to be quite interesting and I learned a lot along the way, too.

In another tutorial, I showed how to paint and manipulate cheesecloth in art journals and altered books.

For an example, I created flowers in a field and sewed the cheesecloth to a sheet of 110 lb cardstock.

 

From 2020.

 

I spent two tutorials creating faux shibori using various spray mists and various folding techniques.

 

This was my first attempt.

 

I got some decent results the second time around.

Just to prove all my tutorials are not centered around fabric, I learned this technique from my friend Sharon who shared it on her blog.  I have created shaving cream paper before, but this was a new technique I had not heard of before.

The idea is, you allow the shaving cream with the dye ink to sit at least an hour and overnight if needed.

 

In return, you get something beautiful like this.

 

 From 2021.

 

There's no question this is one tutorial lots of people found useful.  I showed various ways to use instant coffee to make some pretty awesome backgrounds for art journals and altered books.

The other tutorial many seemed to enjoy was how to create your own vellum using baby oil and regular copier/printer paper.

You can print images using either a laser printer (the rooster) or an ink jet printer (the Paris image) before you add the baby oil, or leave the paper plain. 

 

I hope you enjoyed this look back at a baker's dozen of my Second Thursday tutorials I have created since 2016.  It's good I had lots to choose from, because some didn't turn out as well as others.