Graduation Owl:Learning from Experience

The last few days have been so much fun for me because you have been sharing your ideas with lil ol' me. Wow! Thank you! Today's creation was inspired when Sandi Lou suggested a graduation card. By the way Sandi Lou,...your other idea of making felt finger puppets with the cut out pieces added to the puppet is genius! All of you have given such great ideas and of course I don't have enough hours in my day to try them all. Be sure to join our die-cut challenge this month and show us how you would create some of these things while using your own style. If you don't have a blog and would like to join the challenge you are welcome to send me a picture and I will post it during the week. lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com

Don't forget to leave a comment today for a chance to be one of two random winners of the new owl die set. Winners to be announced on Thursday's Dream Schemes...the time when my designers and our Guest designer, Terri Sproul get together to show you what they've got. Remember I have something else to show you on Thursday regarding our new Dual Alphabet die set.

Today's Tutorial:

The basics for doing this owl is exactly like the Sunshine Owl from a couple of days ago.However instead of using the paste just white I mixed my own color of paste with the Wendy Vecchi Archival re-inkers as shown yesterday with the Baby "nest" card. I used her Dandelion colored ink. I often do my mixing on a piece of wax paper or freezer paper and then I can fold it over onto the mixed paste and use it as I need it...this will keep it from drying out.

I die cut the shape of the largest owl out of a sticky mounting paper.

Save the cut frame piece to use later.

Then I remove one side of the release paper and add glitter to the owl.

Add the glitter to the sticky paper by rubbing it into the owl. I used Art Glitter's microfine #515 called Riverbank.







The next few steps are exactly like the sunshine owl from a couple of days ago...once the embossing paste is dry you are ready to add your color, so don't be surprised at looking at the bright punk pink color:

Use the LG751 Large Owl Stencil and paste emboss with the now colored Dreamweaver Embossing Paste (DEP). But in order to place the stencil it can be difficult to align, so I taped the frame from the original cut out onto the stencil...you need to act like this is just part of the stencil I refer to this as a stencil/frame piece. Then place the glittered owl shape face down into this cut out stencil/frame for perfect alignment. BUT don't tape the glittered owl into this frame or it will be difficult to remove when you are finished paste-embossing.

Before you do anything else...take a couple of pieces of removable tape and roll them...then adhere them to the back of the owl. This will ensure that the owl is anchored on the paper when you remove the stencil/frame after the paste-embossing process. Now turn the owl over onto a piece of scrap paper and tape down on all four sides. Apply the Dreamweaver Embossing Paste to the Paste Spreader using the smaller palette knife (DPK).

Paste-emboss with the spreader (LM2010) with just one sweep of the spreader if possible and then remove the stencil/frame with the hinge technique. This is where that rolled tape on the backing of the owl helps...because when you lift the stencil the owl will then stay on the paper and the frame and stencil will be lifted away.

I let the embossing paste dry and then I repostioned the large owl stencil (LG751) and stenciled it with the Tim Holtz distress inks using stencil brushes. I didn't put the color on really heavily, because I was going to hand it over to Wayne to add some Zentangle patterns and I wanted his magic black pen to show up on the stenciled surface. The pattern on the upper part of his wing is called "purk" and then the lower pattern is one of his own creations called "drain-oh". This is the second piece that Wayne has done on the regular Dreamweaver Embossing Paste (DEP). This paste is porous and accepts stenciling paints and inks beautifully, but we weren't sure how it would be for drawing with the micron pens. His comment ...(because it is porous) was... "the pen tip can drag or catch sometimes", so you need to be aware as you work that this could happen, keep your pen tip angled and moving.

The finishing touch to the card was the mortarboard and diploma: the graduation stencil (LL449). It was paste-embossed using the Dreamweaver Matte Black Embossing Paste (DMBP).

Let it dry well, then cut out the two pieces with a craft knife. I cut the mortarboard a little shorter because it was sitting kind of high on his head.

Here's a close up:

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