Handprinted fabric and a little giveaway

Have you been embellishing shopping totes with carved apple and potatoe stamps when you were a child? Creating your handmade christmas wrapping paper with a bit wonky stars and christmas trees? – I did so, but since then I didn’t think much of this technic anymore … till I came across the beautiful handprinted fabrics on Maze&Vale via Noodlehead. What beautiful patterns can be created with handmade stamps!I delved into the various methods of stamping and found further nifty and whimsical ideas around the web. Or did it cross your mind at some point to use lettuce to create a rose stamp?

With all those ideas in my head I was waiting to give it a try myself, experimenting with a few methods: I cut  patterns out of rubber foam and glued them onto styrofoam (I also tried to use the styrofoam itself, but the one I had bought was too coarse.), I wrapped twine around a block of styrofoam, and I stamped the childhood way: with apples and … kumquats, inspired by Alisa who created beautiful patterns by using fresh cranberries as stamps.After covering the whole floor with tarpaulin, I started my project, using Pébéo textile colours. I mostly printed on light fabric, but you could use them as well on dark coloured fabric. The colour is easy to use and soaks into the fabric without leaving a gummy surface when it is dried out. The outcome? Have a look for yourself. At the end of the day, my favourite prints were the apple stamps – back to the roots!After heat sealing my first handprinted fabric by ironing and proudly taking some pictures of it, I was really excited to see my fabric in action (Not counting the buttons I made out of my first printing trials on scraps.) Like a boomerang I came back to my all time favourite quick sewing project, Annas cute zippy wallets. So I sewed up a little red apple wallet and a yellow and blue kumquat wallet. The red one closes with a KAM snap, the yellow-blue one with velcro. By the way I could also use some of my sweet lace bias tape (The visitor of my Pinterest page may have observed my recent obsession with lace and doilies…) Don’t they look so sweet?Wouldn’t this be a good chance to do my first GIVEAWAY? – Yes! I just lately experienced for myself, how nice it is to be a lucky winner! So, here is your chance to win one of those little zippy wallets:

Just leave a comment and tell me which of the two you would like to win and why. I am really excited to do my first giveaway and hear from you, my mostly silent readers!The giveaway ends at 11:59pm CET on Thursday, March 1st, 2012. It is open to all entries. One winner will be selected by random.org and will be notified by email.

The giveaway is officially closed, thanks to everyone who entered!

I found the bokeh textures on deviantART where you can browse through thousands of variations.