Woven ACEO's

© 2009 Tracy Borders

ACEO stands for Art Cards, Editions & Originals.

These were made for a Technique Swap in Surface Design.

I thought I'd give you a little "how to" on how I made these.......have any old ugly material that you don't know what to do with, but you just can't bring yourself to throw it away? Here is the perfect opportunity to use it.

I used some old Christmas fabric. I cut two panels to work with. One, I sat aside to use as is & the other, I fused (undyed) cheesecloth to it. I then fused Wonder Under to the back sides of both panels (this will come in handy later on.) I then cut both panels into various sized strips & wove them back together. (Here is where the backed Wonder Under comes into play.) As I would weave every 3 or 4 rows, I would hit it with a Teflon pressing sheet & iron. This would keep the woven strips from moving all over & fuse it to the Peltex below.

Since I needed to make 8 ACEO's, I created strips long enough to create 3 ACEO's in each row (& a couple to add to my Etsy store). I could have made each card individually, but since there were many steps ahead, it was just easier to fuse all 4 rows onto the Peltex. Below, is a closeup of the woven strips.

Next, I had to cover up all of that Christmas print. I painted both the back & front of the piece with white latex house paint. Yes, regular old, whatever you can find in the garage, white paint. If you wanted, you could used Gesso or any other undercoating, but why not use house paint? I'm sure we all have some hiding in our garages somewhere. It's cheaper than going out & buying a jar of Gesso & it works just as well.

This house paint, seals the fabric underneath & gives the paint you're about to use on the surface, something to grab on to.

I applied two coats to the back side of the panel & only one to the front, since I wanted to make sure that the latex wouldn't clog & cover up the cheesecloth texture.

Now comes the time for adding color........... I applied many layers of Golden Acrylics's Magenta, Turquoise, Purple & Oxide Green. (You can see three of the colors I used in the photograph below.) I know, at this moment, it looks really nasty, but if you look at the photo below this one, it actually comes out really nice!!

After the many layers of drying paint, I then cut each strip into 3 ACEO's & touched up the edges so you couldn't see the white Peltex.

© 2009 Tracy Borders

All of this & not once did I use my sewing machine!

© 2009 Tracy Borders

Part of this technique I learned in Lynda's & Carol's Textured Surfaces class.