DecoArt Goes Zakka! Part Two

Welcome back to part two of creating your own mobile phone sleeve from stamped and brayered on fabric and ribbon!

Yesterday in part one I showed you how to stamp and brayer your ribbons and fabric (see image above). Today it's time to sew and embellish to get something like this:

As I promised, you won't need a measuring tape.

But you will need:

- your altered ribbons and fabric (from tutorial part one)
- a piece of cardstock (I took a sheet of heavy copy paper)
- a pencil
- scissors
- your sewing machine (plus thread of course)
- DecoArt So Soft fabric paint of your choice
- a stencil
- a stencil brush
- a black textile marker
- your mobile phone
- some embellishments to sew on if desired






1. Center your mobile phone on the white card and draw its outline using a pencil.

2. Cut out the shape. I used my carpet knife but you can as well use a pair of scissors.

3. Moving your "stencil" over the painted piece of fabric find the detail you want as your front for the sleeve. Lay down (or fix it with some pins).

4. Get your words stencil and place it over the apperture. As I wanted to add some stamped on ribbon on the left I decided to put the "ENCHANT" more to the right.

5. Apply a tiny amount of DecoArt So Soft farbic colour of your choice to the acetate and load your stipple brush. Stipple onto some scrap of paper first to make sure there's not too much colour on your brush - otherwise it might soak under your stencil.

6. Stipple your image by fastly securing your stencil with the other hand.

Clean your brush immediately - as long as the colour is still wet.


7. Let your fabric dry or speed up using your hair dryer or heat tool (don't use your heat tool with fabric that contains any synthetics as they would melt and cause the fabric to crumple!)

Then outline the image using a black textile marker. Fixate (if necessary) following the instructions on your marker.

8. Use the selfmade stencil again to find the desired spot for your ribbon. Sew it down with two straight seams.

9. Then take your mobile phone and wrap your fabric around it so your front side is perfectly in place. Flip it over (with your phone still inside) and use the stencil again to find a good spot for another ribbon for the backside of your sleeve.

As I forgot to take pictures of these steps, I tried to explain by making some sketches. I hope they work for you.

10. Having found the spot where you want your second ribbon to be on, carefully - by holding the ribbon in place - unfold your "mobile phone-fabric-stencil sandwich" and sew the ribbon in place:

Then cut your fabric to size before you sew the upper seam. You can do so by having your phone still wrapped in the fabric (again - no measuring ;). When sewing don't forget to fold in your seam about a small finger's width.
Also leave about a finger's width of overlap on all sides for later sewing.  You do not need a seam at the bottom. (I had it drawn first, but then remembered that I didn't do one as the bottom will be sewn together anyway - sorry for the terribly worked over sketch. But actually this is how I work when I do more complicated projects... a lot of drawing and drawing over and crossing out ;).


11. After you have done the upper seam flip your piece over again ("good side" facing inwards) and wrap it one more time around your mobile phone to find the correct spot for your side seam. Pay attention that you don't make your sleeve too narrow or too wide. Both of it can be rather annoying - having your phone get stuck or slip out too easily.

Take out your phone before sewing ;)
Do the same to find the correct distance for your bottom seam. Then cut off the excess at the bottom and flip over again. You're almost done! Yay!

12. You can stitch on some embellishments if you like to. I added a tiny metal label for example.

I know, I know, my phone sleeve isn't done perfectly and those of you who are well experienced in sewing will do it a lot better, but honestly I sometimes love the imperfection of handmade things (even though I admit that there's a fine line between imperfection's beauty and charm and the kind of imperfection that tells that someone simply wasn't good at what he was doing *lol).

I leave it up to you to judge. But mainly I hope you will enjoy making your own semi-controlled sewing projects and experiences!

Have fun and happy sewing/crafting/stamping/messing!

Claudia x