I love using my scraps of fabric to make little cards and works of art to give as gifts. I’ve been an avid fuser for a long time, thanks to Laura Wasilowski for giving me permission to fuse! As I was adding the interview with Cas Holmes on the site, I was enamored with her work – I needed to learn more. Off to Amazon to buy three of her books. She uses diluted wall paper paste to work on her collages. Needing to learn more, I started playing. Here is how to make a collage with wall paper paste.
The consistency of the diluted wall paper paste is important. Too thick, and it bulks up when it dries, too thin and if you have a lot of layers, if you are manipulating the piece, they might come loose. Then, there is just right. It didn’t take me long to get that right consistency. Watch the video below and you can see the viscosity that works well for me. My ratio is about 2 parts water and 1 part wall paper paste.
How to Collage with Wall Paper Paste
Learn how to collage with wall paper paste and make a small piece of fiber art.
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Materials
- Wall paper paste
- Fabric scraps to make a collage
Tools
- Bowl to mix wall paper paste and water
- Paint brush
- Scissors
- Plastic mat or vinyl table cloth to work on
Instructions
- Start by wetting your background fabric with a light coating of the diluted wall paper paste. See above for notes on how to dilute the wall paper paste.
- Next, start having fun and adding your elements to your collage. I'm making some little bird cards to send to friends and family. I started with a strip of fabric as the ground.
- After you put each piece down on the background, put another layer of the diluted wall paper paste on top.
What is great with this method of collage is that you can easily pick up and move the pieces around while wet, and when dry you can easily peel them up if you change your mind! With fusing, you are pretty much committed once you take the iron to your work.
Here I've added the little bird body.
- Next, I added a belly for the bird. Again with each addition, just a light brush of the diluted wall paper paste.
- Then, I added a wing. I like to really vary the fabrics and size of the design to add more visual interest.
- Now it is time to add a little beak. No scrap is too small when you begin working in this method!
- Let this dry overnight. I have tried doing the collage work in the early in the day thinking I would be able to work on them later in the day, but they were still a little damp.
After the collage is dry, I like to thread sketch around the pieces to add character and hold down the piece of fabric for good. Then, add a little hand stitching. On these cards, I added some lazy daisy's.
Here are pictures of the finished cards. I worked them in batch mode and made fifteen of them to send out. A little bit of love and good thoughts were put into each one of them!
- After the embroidery and stitching is all done, I fused the pieces to TimTex with white muslin on the back to be able to write a little note.
- Then, trim the cards and finish the edges - and they are ready to either mail as fiber postcards, or protects them with an envelope.
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Can you use wall paper paste to collage?
Yes! Diluted wall paper paste is an economical way to do collage with paper or textiles. Some people dilute clear drying glue, but will wall paper paste it is easy to peel off textiles that might not be working and adjust your collage piece – even when it is dry.
Once you try this technique, you will use it in other forms of your textile and fiber arts. It’s fun and easy! It’s great for laying out elements for raw edge machine appliqué on clothes, home dec items as well as fiber and textile art pieces.
Browse through more collage inspiration and projects on Create Whimsy.
