The Craftiest Workshop

I am the type of person that thrives on learning new things. That being said, the new things need to be in hobbies that I enjoy like baking, gardening, board games, knitting or crafting. This week I came across a post about a new form of art that uses foam board and scrap pieces of material.

Kinusaiga was originally a Japanese art form of tucking silk into wood. People have adapted it using insulation foam or foam board for crafting.

After seeing a post on Instagram about kinusaiga art, I watched a few videos of people making some pieces. The very first one I came across gave this big long spiel about not copying her (or anyone else’s) patterns. As the patterns end up being quite basic and easily drawn, I am not sure why she was so adamant about it.

I bought a $2 foam board from Dollarama and some double sided adhesive paper from Michael’s. I already have two large totes of smaller pieces of a variety of fabrics so I didn’t need any fabric.

I drew out a cross for my first project breaking it up into geometric pieces.
The entire thing measured 6”X8”. Here is how it turned out.

I realized after that I should have gone with a solid colour around the cross or just left the black foam board with no adhesive paper. It was just a shape that was easy to try for my first go at it.

My next one took a bit more thought and planning. I decided to do my squirrel. I have enough photos of him from many angles. I picked one out and put it into the Colorscape app. This just pulls out the shapes and makes a black and white sketch. I erased the areas around the squirrel to get a general idea of its shape.

I traced the squirrel onto a piece of tracing paper and broke it up into manageable sections.

I had some new 5X7 frames that I had gotten a the free dump store so I decided to use one. I cut the foam board to that size with a utility knife then cut a piece of adhesive paper to place on top of the foam board. Using carbon paper, I transferred the squirrel to the white side of the adhesive paper.

I gently scored all the lines of the drawing cutting through the adhesive paper and about halfway through the foam board. I had to go over it a couple times to make sure the curves were cut.

I chose a bunch of different fabrics that I thought might work and changed my mind as I was adding pieces. I would remove the white paper of one section and place it onto a piece of fabric cutting it out leaving about 1/4” edge all around. I placed the piece of fabric over the revealed sticky section and began tucking the fabric into the edges using a thread ripper (upside down). This is the first section done and second section with the sticky part revealed.

Everything went really well for this one aside from the nose, mouth and middle of the eye. I had put in pieces for the nose and eye but the sections were too small and the foam collapsed a bit. I decided to add them with a black marker at the end.

The fabric for the wood beneath the squirrel was upholstery fabric and, although it stayed put, it was hard to work with. Cotton fabrics seem to work well. I am still struggling with how to make at least the sides and potentially the back look better. I pinned the pieces into the bottom and used some of the adhesive paper to stick some of the fabric to the back. All the pieces coming from different fabrics at different lengths does not look pretty. Perhaps gluing the whole thing to a piece of backing board would work. Using the frame, I had to choose to not use the glass if I wanted the back of the frame to fit.

There is something very satisfying about tucking in a section and having it look like quilting with no frays and no sewing.

I have two more 5X7 frames so I think a chickadee is in the cards for my next one.
Any other easy scenes that you think might look nice using fabric?