Theatre Guignol

There is a whole new category of collage sheets available on the Alphastamps website, all with the subject of Paper Theatres. As a member of the Alphastamps Design Team, I had the privilege of being able to start playing with these earlier than everyone else, but I had to keep the resulting theatres secret.

However things are out in the open now and you can start ordering these delicious sheets so it's time to show you here what I did for my first theatre.

Start with the image from the Alphastamps Large Theatre Jumping Jacks fabric sheet. Cut this out leaving a bit of white around the image. Detach the paper backing from the fabric and layer the fabric image with batting (wadding in UK). Use gold thread on your sewing machine and stitch along the outside perimeter and well as the inside one, and also straight stitch all the straight lines as shown.

Cut away just outside your outside stitching and using a satin stitch and gold thread, stitch along the edges again. Also cut away the inside area along the stitched lines so that you have an open window there.

Do the same (i.e. layering and stitching) with the fabric image from the Alphastamps Fairy Tale Curtains collage sheet. Again make sure you have a margin of white around your image as well as a margin of extra batting (wadding). Place your first image on top of this one so that the interior image fits into the opening of your first image and straight stitch with gold thread to adhere the two images.
Then oversaw this inside edge with gold satin stitching as above.


Now cut out your dancing pierrot couple image from Alphastamps Pierrot #3 fabric sheet and detach the fabric backing. Iron the image onto Fast2Fuse (following the manufacturers’ instructions) and cut it out again along the lines. Used double sided tape to position the couple in front of the theatre scene as shown.

Add Iridescent Glass Spheres and Mica (also from Alphastamps) by adding glue (The Ultimate) to the window and pushing the bubbles into it.

To make the diorama box (also available from Alphastamps here) into a theatre, paint it first with gesso (2 layers), let dry, add red oxide fluid transparent paint (Golden) and when dry add gold acrylic paint, patting it down with a sponge and removing some of the gold again to give it an aged look. When dry add the words Theatre Guignol (from Alphastamps Portrait Small Theatre Guignol) and use Diamond Glaze on top of the words.

Finally glue on a decorative ribbon (from Alphastamps Metallic Jacquards) onto the bottom edge.

© Frieda Oxenham November 2008