Dressmaking Themed Canvas

I made this 'Shadow Box' which is really a reversed canvas yesterday. One of my favourite stamp sets ever, is the Sewing Plate from the Artistic Stamper, and I had wanted to use it in conjunction with this wonderful Torso art mould from Krafty Lady, called Mini Torso Front, which you can get from The Stamp Bug, and also I wanted it to be a canvas to use the tissue paper technique as I had some of this dressmaking tissue which I thought would work well. I cut the bit of tissue I liked best to do the stamping part for the centre of the canvas, and cut another good bit to fold to make a sort of folded pattern embellishment for the top left corner. I used Viva Gold Precious Metal Paint on the canvas, which you can get from the Artistic Stamper, then a crackle paste I got from somewhere else as an attempt at a substitute for crackle paint, but I'm afraid I wasn't happy with it. I then sprayed the lot with glimmer mists.

I have been crazy about the shadow boxes Hels has been making but had found it difficult to source them, so I thought I would use a reversed chunky canvas so that I had the sides, and the edges, to work with. All around the sides I stamped a selection of the smaller images from the set, which gives you a lot of images to work with. I made up the torso with some flesh coloured pearlescent friendly plastic, and stamped a bit of twill to wrap across it using a tape measure stamp, and put a strip of gold card on the end the way tape measures sometimes look, and stood it on a mini wooden cotton reel. The adorable iron sewing machine, which reminds me of the one my mum inherited from my grandmother and used when I was a child, is actually a dolls house item. There was a story to this as I bought it years ago when I was in a craft shop with a friend and she thought it was expensive and I would never use it and I shouldn't buy it. I was in love with it and virtually had a trantrum in the shop and lay on the floor kicking my legs! In the end I sloped back to the shop on my own a few days later and bought it! Big confession - it is not stuck down to the canvas as I can't part with it for one particular project so I will re-use it. Likewise the dressform as the mould itself is out on loan to a friend so I only have this one left that I had already moulded.

Around the edges on the tissue layer inside the canvas I have used various items to embellish it. A shrink plastic tape measure, made from the ruler in the Artist Plate (from the Artistic Stamper) and a black and gold shrink plastic sewing machine from the Sewing Plate, and then a needle threader, and some poppers, a special silver button I had been saving, a dinky minute zip, and a pair of scissors from one of those novelty button sets. Around the edge of the canvas itself I have added some buttons and a piece of tea dyed lace, with a hat pin pushed through it which is a lovely little touch I have copied from my dear friend, Lynne, so I hope she doesn't mind!

Here's a close up of the Torso mould:-

I have also taken close-ups of the dolls house sewing machine, and also the shrink plastic one made from the Artistic Stamper stamp.