Old 10-17-2011, 07:40 PM
  #18  
QuiltE
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 17,709
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Originally Posted by BuzzinBumble
Originally Posted by QuiltE
Thank you! I'm really curious how you "made" the fabric ... and with using your own leaves, etc .... photos first? and then what?
Okay, for you QuiltE, since I remember how much you enjoy maple leaves! :-D Curiosity has many rewards!

This is how I "make" fabric using things I find in our garden:
I pick & snip a lot of goodies that look like they would press flat nicely.
Then I press my samples flat in wax paper sandwiches between thick sections of phone book pages. Then I weight them and then wait on them. LOL After a month or more, you have very nice pressed leaves and flowers.
When the time feels right, I lay all the flat flora across our huge kitchen table. Then little by little I build arrangements on white foam core boards. I use very small bits of rolled scotch tape to hold them in place, since some items will need to be moved around and even reused.
When I'm happy with the arrangement, I carry it carefully to the scanner, flip it over with trepidation and scan it.

I did a lot, and I do meana lot, of testing on various means of printing images on fabric. I tried every homemade idea, many kinds of cotton and silks and a few brands of commercial products. I like EQ Printables the best when sharp photo quality matters. For these I also use archive quality pigment based inks, so they will really last and not fade. And I use the really huge EQ 13"x19" fabric sheets.
It all works really well.
Next I would like to try it photographing unsquished arrangements. ;)
hey, I'm Canadian ... gotta love those maple leaves!
WOW ... so you do this on a regular printer? and kind of the same process as what people print labels (except of course, a LOT more work!!!) ... WOW WOW WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

I can just imagine the old heart a fluttering as you turn over your foam core each time!

As a hint ... you don't have to "roll" the scotch tape ... you can get the double sided scotch tape, that's like post-it notes, so easy to remove and move around. You can also get the same stuff in "dots".
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