Sew Powerful Purses 129-130 (2025)

I was playing and experimenting again. I had seen a technique using a paper napkin that was added to paper or cloth and I wanted to try it. A plastic food wrap was ironed on over the napkin and fabric and somehow it fused together. That looked great, so I bought some napkins and clear food wrap and tried it. Utter failure! Nothing fused at all. The plastic wrap melted. I did cover the piece with a pressing sheet so it wouldn't make a mess when pressing. 

I saw a another way to adhere the napkin and tried it with the flap with balloons. I used Mod Podge fabric formula. It worked, but it wasn't perfect. I coated over the balloons too so it has a sort of vinyl feel and makes it more permanent as well. Need more practice to get better at it.

The napkin with Farm Fresh Flowers on it, I decided to just use iron on vinyl (Pellon brand) and it worked too, although it is a bit stiffer than the Mod Podge. 

On both flaps I used a light canvas material that I had added textured color to so it wasn't so stark white. The colored textures show through the napkins which I like. It was a fun experiment and I would like to perfect it with more practice. I was thinking I could use some fun decorative papers as well, although being thicker than a napkin the textured colors wouldn't show through and it might make for a stiffer flap, so playing with scraps first I would see what I think.

If you Google this technique, you will also find there are lots of gorgeous paper napkins for sale as well, but rather pricey for just a few paper napkins. I went to Dollar Tree and found these for $1.25 a package and often there are more than one image per napkin too. I got 4 of the same image on each Flower napkin, one image of the balloons, but the rest of the napkin had borders of stars that could be used too. I watched a few videos and in the end did my own thing as the plastic wrap didn't work for me. Maybe my iron was too hot? Maybe because I painted the textures on the fabric the plastic wrap didn't want to adhere? More experimenting required for sure.

These turned out rather well for a first attempt.

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