I mentioned the other day that I was going to continue playing with my silk carrier rods, and possibly turn it into silk paper? Well here we go:
I gently teased apart 2 rods by first softening and straightening out the rods in my hands. I then was able to gently pull apart the layers of silk. Each rod will give you about 3 to 4 layers.
The layers are then gently stretched apart, going from 6 inches to about 9 to 10 inches in length.
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| silk cocoon layers ready to wet down |
I then lay the silk lengths ( I love how when you pull the silk layers apart, the colours change- this was a solid magenta rod at the start) in a woven pattern on top of some baking (parchment) paper and lightly sprayed them with water. I then covered this with another sheet of baking paper then ironed with a warm/hot iron.
I mentioned in my last post on carrier rods that they consist of seracin and silk - the seracin is a gummy substance that the silk worm produces to hold his cocoon together.
The seracin is the glue that when mixed with the water and heat,binds the silk together to form silk paper. TOO EASY!
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| Gold and magenta silk rods teased apart to make silk paper |
I left the silk to dry for a few hours then it was time to play! I decided that a journal cover would be fun, and as I happen to love lots of texture and colour in my collages the paper was going to be perfect!
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| Mixed media journal cover |
I lay the silk paper onto a piece of card, melted some copper foil onto it then went berserk with the sewing machine to hold it all in place on the card. I then cheated and glued a commercial scrap booking verse on the front. Trimmed the edges using fancy paper scissors, went over the edges with a stamp to distress it a little. Glued it onto the little book and Wa La! Collaged journal cover using silk carrier rod paper.
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| Shabby silk rose |
