Tuesday, April 13, 2010

80's Love.

While looking through a binder of project ideas, I came across a stencil I had cut a looooong time ago,  probably about 2 years ago.  See how easily distracted I am?  The whole stencil was completely cut and ready to paint.  And what do I do with it?  Shove it in a sketchbook and forget about it.

I whipped out a tote bag and some paint and got to work.  Since the text looked super 80's, I thought neon was appropriate.  First, I splattered the acrylic on both sides.  Then I ironed the stencil, made of freezer paper, onto the bag and painted the text.

  I added a few coats of gold glitter paint to the word "parties" to make it stand out a bit more.    I embroidered outlines around all of the letters for more definition.  Around the word parties I used the Glow-in-the-dark thread from Sublime Stitching.  It looks so awesome when it's lit up, I'm still trying to get a good picture of that part.


The back has an extra color since the text on the front was originally going to be all blue.  By time I changed my mind about that it was too late to add more splatters to the font.  Since the front is so busy looking though, I don't think it really matters.

Between all of the different steps it took a few days to complete.  While I was working on it I didn't particularly like it and was ready to scrap the whole thing.  I'm glad I didn't though.  Now that it's all finished, I think it came out pretty good. 

Do you think it's too over the top or tacky?  Be honest.  Since it's doesn't really fit my look, I was going to put it in my etsy.  I'm not sure how that will go over... I'm not exactly making stuff that's aimed at Regretsy.  Although it may appear that way, with the overabundance of neon on this tote.

Anyways, thanks for looking.  More stitches to come soon.  Have a creative day!

4 comments:

artymess said...

Hi Jacquie it's fun and with tote bags being popular now because we are using less plastic bags it beats the boring brownish hessian ones that you buy (well in the UK anyhow)you aren't losing anything by putting it on Etsy....Lorna

* said...

Tote bags are big stuff right now and that one is cool. My teen would adore it.

Anonymous said...

Great tote! I love the cool retro look and the embroidery does indeed make it pop! xo

MafiosaGrrl said...

thanks for the reassurance guys! since it kind of looks like the 80s threw up on it i wasn't sure if anyone else would be down for that, lol.