Making a Tyvek Box - 2 day workshop at Art Van Go - December 8th & 9th

2 rather splendid corsages.

My last workshop for 2015 was at Art Van Go, an excellent way to end the year. Viv and Kevin and the team look after everyone so well. They run a very comprehensive workshop timetable. Here are the workshops for 2016 - 
bit.ly/1IjvI4U 
 I have a new one in August, Sticky and Shiny. Learning how to use all the glues and fusible webs with transfer foil. I think this is a long overdue workshop.

Anyway - back to Making a Tyvek Box. As many of you will know, I rarely teach a workshop where students leave with something finished. teaching process is my passion. However, I thought it might be time to show how adaptable Tyvek can be and that students don't need to leave with just a bag of colourful, textured samples.

 
My Tyvek box sample.

                 
I took along the book Embroidered Boxes by Janet Edmonds. It has beautiful ideas for making boxes and has patterns for different styles of boxes with photocopying instructions. All of Janet's book are brilliant - clear and inspirational. Viv helped me blow up the patterns on their photocopier, whilst I have many skill and talents, using a photocopier for anything apart from copying is not one of them!

 

 A must for every book shelf.

We started by painting the Tyvek A4 sheets (on both sides) with watered down acrylic paint. If the paint is too thick it will form a barrier and the heat wont get through.
 

Painting the Tyvek.

Before launching into the boxes, I though it best for the group to learn how Tyvek reacts to heat using an iron and a heat gun. Control is the main thing to concentrate on when you work with Tyvek, knowing how far you can go.

 

2 of the corsages.

We started off distressing 1 piece of Tyvek between 2 sheets of baking with an iron. It is important to stroke your sample with the iron, just come into contact with the baking parchment and apply no pressure at all. Using slow, circular movements you can build up your texture.
We then went onto make some crazy corsages by cutting out 3 circles of Tyvek in contrasting colours and decreasing sizes. The circles are stitched together in the centre and then heat is applied using the iron and then the heat gun to get the edges to curl up. A reasonable amount of control can be achieved.

 

 

 

We also made beads and bowls.

One of the fabulous bowls.

A few of the corsages . . 

As you can see, the group had a great time with the corsages.

Once I felt the group could control the heat tools to the desired skill level we set off with making the panels for the boxes. The panels were 2 or 3 layers of Tyvek with contrasting colours of polyester organza in between the layers. These layers were then machine stitched together. Once all the panels were stitched the group then used a heat gun to distress the Tyvek and expose different layers of colour

                  Very carefully applying heat to expose different layers.


Then we stitched the boxes together. One of the girls had some battery operated lights n her bag!!! so we had a look at the those in one of the boxes.

 A box with battery operated lights in.

The girls that had made similar shaped boxes decided they wouldn't complete them with a closure/fastening and leave them open - to do the same. DO NOT put naked flames inside one of these boxes, even nightlights in a glass container would be dangerous. Only use battery operated lights.

A selection of samples.

 Another selection of splendidness.

One of the finished boxes.

All the boxes.

Teaching at Art Van Go is such fun. I don't get much time to see Viv and Kevin as we are all so busy - so spending a couple of days there is a real treat.

It was also a great opportunity to stock up on supplies . . . 

***

So - here we are falling head long into Christmas, I hope you have a very happy time with friends and family and if you are traveling - travel safe.

I hope you have enjoyed this years antics - next year is going to be even more bonkers - more of that next week.

My love and best wishes to you all.

x