If your home and studio need a little sprucing up this spring, pick up the March/April 2017 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine and get inspired. I’m so excited about this issue, because it’s all about creating mixed-media home decor, using the techniques and skills you love to create beautiful items for your home.
Think colorful, textured pillows, funky furniture, a woven wall hanging, and an assemblage shadow box you’ll be proud to display. After all, why shouldn’t your home be an extension of your art? If you love creating layered stencil techniques in your art journal, you’re going to love them just as much on your coffee table.
This trend in creating mixed-media home décor has been growing, and it was front and center at the past two Association for Creative Industries shows I attended. Companies showed off luscious paints; oversized stamps and stencils perfect for walls and furniture; modern, ready-to-display weaving looms; and fun wooden shapes that just need your creativity to make them shine. I fell in love with the Iron Orchid Designs line for Prima Marketing, Inc. Sally Griswold and Josie Celio are the sisters behind IOD, and they’ve designed incredible detailed silicone molds, rubber stamps, and rub-ons that can be used on collages, in home dec, on book covers, and more. I was thrilled when they agreed to do a project for this issue, an artist’s stool that incorporates paper clay and stamped images that has the perfect vintage-meets-modern vibe.
Rachel Denbow shows how to create one-of-a-kind woven wall art that incorporates materials mixed-media artists are sure to love, like feathers and dried plants. If you’re new to weaving, her techniques are so easy and fun that you’ll look like a pro in no time.
And don’t miss Betz White’s pillow that uses felt, hand and machine stitching, easy fabric piecing, and sari yarn to create a vivid, dimensional piece that will brighten any room. On the cover is Cathe Holden’s stunning assemblage shadow box, a standout piece that will give a purpose to all those vintage goodies you’ve been hoarding.
There’s so much more to explore in this issue: A bracelet with a cool resin technique from Becky Nunn; mixed-media layering with paints, inks, and spray stains from Annie O’Brien Gonzales; and a profile of artist Hollie Chastain, whose bold, graphic artwork will have you looking at collage in a new way.
I’m already at work on a woven piece, and I have an upgrade planned for an old piece of furniture. Let this mixed-media home decor issue be your guide to exciting new techniques and projects, and Happy Spring!