Pennsylvania’s Beth Petricoin loves polymer and upcycling. A favorite shirt ruined by bleach spots could have been discarded or demoted but Beth couldn’t let that happen. She decided to hide the problem with a radiating design in polymer.
She fabricated the components from thin pieces of polymer cut out and applied with Sculpey Bake and Bond. “I worked in segments of about 6″ by 8″, curing in between segments to keep the areas for curing totally flat in the oven,” says Beth.
She details her project step-by-step in a blog post. She even laundered the shirt after finishing to test the glue’s strength and gives it a definite thumbs up.
“I can hardly wait to jazz up another piece of clothing! I can also see this idea put into use to cover up unwanted holes in clothing….lots of ideas running around in my head,” she admits.
Follow other of Beth’s polymer experiments on Flickr, Etsy, Pinterest and her blog. What’s in your closet begging for an upcycle?
Line ,
This is the most innovative thing I’ve seen in polymer clay in a long time.
Susan O'Neill ,
This is SO outside-the-box, even for Beth! She is one of the most clever and innovative artists in our medium.
Kathy Richardson ,
Just when I thought polymer had reached its limits you bring us yet another innovative artist who changes the boundaries yet again! Now to go look at my wardrobe…
Beth Petricoin ,
Thanks so very much for the feature!! This was such a happy surprise!
Lynda Moseley ,
There goes our Beth, Innovator Extraordinaire, again. Not a bit surprised to see this shirt here on PCD this morning. Congratulations, Beth!
Brenda Urquhart ,
Ciao Beth…this is really ingenious…I wrote a comment/question on your Blog…but not sure it has posted yet…so I will present it here in hopes of receiving a response to the question/clarification I have: Just to understand the process as you stated on your Blog…you applied uncured Polymer pieces to the Tee using Bake & Bond and then placed the Tee in the oven and cured? Or did you cure the pieces first and applied them to the Tee using Bake & Bond? I’ve never used Bake & Bond so I sure how it works…however…the name implies it is heat activated…I was also thinking that this would probably work with Liquid Polymer enabling one to draw some interesting Art on Wearable. Hope you see this and respond either from this posting or the one I left on you Blog…Great and Ingenious Save…
Kit Lockwood ,
Wondering now about the possibility of polymer patches…