Dreamweaver and Imagine Crafts: Endless Possibilities-Final Day!

 Welcome to our first ever collaboration week with Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko! We've shared all of our toys on both sides, so be prepared for Endless Possibilities! Three prize packages are available, each containing one set of each of these inks and stencils/dies. Just leave comments on each post of each day this week (June 9th - June 13th) for a chance to win! Winners will be announced on Tuesday, June 17th!

Imagine Crafts New StazOn Pads from Tsukineko

Stencils and Dies Prize Package

A scrapbook page using the bare tree die with the owl die and stencil.

I have been having such a great time using the Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko products this week...WOW! Today I am going to use the Versafine inks. They work absolutely wonderfully in a stencil brush. I would like to just give a word or two about good stencil brushes. When you are using a stencil brush with ink and stenciling onto a paper surface with a shading or rouging technique my suggestion is to use a soft tipped brush. There are a lot of brushes out there that are considered "stippling" brushes, which work fine against fabric or hard surfaces like wood or walls, but if you try to rouge with them against paper you get rough brush strokes. So if you want a smooth soft looking application use a soft tipped but firm bristled brush NOT a stippling brush.

A card for a friend who loves birdies.

Today Wayne (hubbie) and I collaborated with the design of this owl. Wayne is a certified Zentangle teacher (CZT) and two of his own patterns have been shown on Linda Farmer's site tanglepatterns.com. You can go to tanglepatterns.com and find step by step instructions for many many patterns. The main difference between doodling and the Zentangle philosophy is that you can teach someone how to tangle, but you have to be a natural when it comes to doodling. First Wayne placed the stencil onto white card stock and traced the design of the large owl stencil (LG751) using an 01 micron pen. Then he did all of the tangle work next. The beauty of using a stencil to tangle inside of.... is that the design of the stencil creates the "strings" or compartments in which to create your pattern or tangle. Here are the instructions for the two patterns that are his own...the one on the birds chest is called Logjam and the one on top of his head is called Viaduct.

This was used on the owl's head or cap

Logjam was used on the owl's chest.

The red lines indicate what you draw first...a very step-by-step process. You can go to tanglepatterns.com and learn other tangles to add. Suzanne McNeill has written a book using our stencils which is called Zentangle 6 , which has other patterns you'll want to add to your repertoire.

Ready to stencil, ink work is finished and the owl stencil is in place and versafine colors are decided...

After Wayne finished his tangle-ation of the owl I let it dry and then placed the stencil on top and added the color by stenciling with the wonderful Versafine colors of ink that you see here. I have to admit that toffee was one of my faves...but being a blue maniac the deep lagoon was right up there too. Now...what happened next is something that I always find challenging. Which is...what do I do next? The creative process for me often comes with putting the pieces together and I am sure most of you are like me ...in that there are a lot of pieces around here. But we have a new owl die set (DG751) and it contains a shape die that just cuts around the outside of this owl....you can see it in the upper right corner of this picture. So I decided to give it a try. Since the artwork was all done I didn't want anything to move so you can see my taped down die around the owl with the blade facing down. I have him sandwiched between the two acrylic plates that I use just for die cutting.

Because the artwork was completely finished on this guy I made sure to tape him down as he was going through the die cutting process.

I started this process thinking to make him into a scrapbook page as you see at the top. But I also photographed him as a finished card as you see below.

7 gypsies/canvas corp paper from the Conservatory collection.

I paste-embossed the sentiment stencil "fine feathered friends" (LM2009) using the Dreamweaver Matte Black Embossing Paste (DMBP). And also aged the edges of the background paper using the Versafine Toffee colored inkpad. Once the sentiment was dry I also added a vintage look to the gray paper that it was on using the same Versafine color.

Now take some time and see what the wonderful Tsukineko and Dream it UP team's have created today. Leave some TLC along the way...that stands for tender loving comments...for a chance to win the giftees listed above. Thank you for taking time to see what's new in the world of Imagine Crafts and Dreamweaver Stencils this week.

Dream It Up!

Kristine Reynolds

Alison Heikkila

Laura Drahozal

Savannah O'Gwynn

Lyn Bernatovich

Jamie Martin

Gill Wilson

Lynn Mercurio

John Creighton Petersen

Louise Healy

Lea Kimmel

Pam Hornschu

Naghma Husain

Kristi Parker Van Doren