Review of Pebeo Setacolor Fabric Paint

Pebeo’s Setacolor fabric paints are a range of 40 colors that can be mixed together and painted or screened onto natural and man made fabrics. They thin and clean up with water and can be heat set in an oven, with a hair dryer, or an iron. After setting, the fabrics are washable and dry cleanable. The wide color range means you can use them to highlight existing miniature fabrics, or create your own. The transparent color range has very little effect on a fabric’s drape, the opaque and metallic colors may stiffen the fabric slightly.

If you can work with watercolor paints, you can easily produce amazing dolls house or other scale fabrics and ribbons using fine cotton lawn or lightweight silk and Setacolor paints. The wide range of opaque and transparent colors can be mixed with each other, or diluted with water to create even more possibilities. Shimmer effects can be created in all colors by adding gold or pearl shimmer paints into the main color. This mix works best with transparent colors.

The paints can be used with rubber stamps, and there is a thickener available if you prefer to use them with a silk screen or stencil. A masking liquid is also available. The masking liquid is not be fixed by heat, and washes out in the first wash.

The paints are easy to use. Fabric should be pre washed to remove any sizing, then stretched on a hoop or taped to a work surface to make a flat surface for painting, stencilling, or stamping. After painting the fabric is allowed to dry for an hour, then ironed on the wrong side with an iron for five minutes. Twenty four hours after ironing, the fabric is safe to wash or dryclean (fabrics must be drycleanable before the paint is used.)

For miniatures and doll house purposes, the paints can be applied to existing printed fabrics, (to add a gold or silver finish for example) or unique colors and prints can be produced for dolls clothing, upholstery or drapery in several scales. Very fine lines and detail are possible if you apply the paint with fine watercolor brushes (000). Larger pieces of fabric can have a wash of color applied, then be cut for upholstery, drapes, bed coverings or other fabric uses, where commercial fabrics in the right scale or shade are difficult to find. Although the Setacolor is ideal for lightweight silks or cotton lawns, it can also be applied to nylon lace, or other fabrics which can be difficult to color match.