Although textile design is a specialized field, it's easier than you think to use your graphic design skills and the tools from your professional graphic design toolbox to create your own fabrics for small projects. All you need are the brushes you use with Photoshop or GIMP, a printer and specialty printable cotton fabric, which you can find on Amazon or at your local craft store. Here's how you do it.
1. Open a new file in your graphics editing program, and size it to the size of your printable fabric.
2. Select the tool you want to use with your brush. For this simple project, choose the paintbrush tool.
3. Choose the brush for your pattern. The brush you choose will depend on your ultimate use for the fabric. For instance, if you're going to stretch it on a frame as a piece of digital artwork, you can use intricate brushes, such as roses and photorealistic images. But if you're going to cut it up to use in a project like the one here, choose a more basic pattern that will create a pattern on your fabric.
4. Place your cursor at the top corner of your page. Note the x,y coordinates, then stamp the image with the brush.
5. Move your cursor to the opposite top corner, positioning it at the same x-coordinate, then click the mouse to stamp your last image. You'll have a perfectly straight line of stamped digital images across the paper.
6. Position the cursor where you want your second row of stamps and repeat the last two steps to create a second row.
7. Keep filling until your entire page is covered.
8. Save the file and print it onto the cotton following the package directions to make sure that it sets correctly.
That's it. You've now used the brushes included in your professional graphic design toolbox to create a piece of fabric that you can use in other crafty projects like this one.
Pattern-printed Fabric Barrettes
You'll need:
A pair of flat barrettes
The printed fabric you just made
Needle and thread
Hot glue gun or fabric glue
Large button
1. Cut a 4-inch by 11.5-inch strip of fabric.
2. Fold the strip in half the long way, with the right side out.
3. Run a line of gathering stitches along the open end of the strip, sewing through both thicknesses of the cloth.
4. Pull the thread to gather the bottom edge of the fabric into a ring.
5. Sew the ends of the ring together to close it and create a fabric rosette.
6. Sew the button to the center of the rosette to create a flower center and cover the raw inner edge.
7. Glue the fabric rosette in place on the barrette.
8. If desired, you can make smaller rosettes and glue them in a row on the barrette.
That's just one example of the nifty, crafty ways you can use fabrics created with brushes from a professional graphic design toolbox. Once you get a feel for the possibilities of creating art images from Photoshop or GIMP brushes, you'll find dozens of using for this unusual type of digital art.
To learn more about subjects like Graphic Design Toolbox please visit the web site at: http://www.brushes.suriweb.net/
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About the Author
Chris Robertson is a published author of Majon International. All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2011 (Fri Feb 18 2011) Majon International. Majon International is one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing and internet advertising companies on the web. Visit their main business resource internet marketing web site at: http://www.majon.com
