Christmas in August with Woodware: Hop Day Four

If you are arriving for the weekly Thursday's Dream Schemes you have caught us in the middle of a blog hop...YEAH! You've found us hopping! Please join us for a wonderful opportunity to win some lovely stencils and stamps. I did try to make my card today with more of an "August as an Adjective" feel...because that is what our challenge is this month. Scroll down to last Thursday's post for more information regarding the challenge if you would like to join. And if you would like to add your challenge card that is where the inlinkz is located!

Yes! It's that time of year again! The time when we inspire crafters on both sides of the "pond" with a mix of both Dreamweaver and Woodware UK* products for the holidays! Six days, SIX, of beautiful, elegant, merry, cute, artsy, and craftsy projects to have you heading out to your local stores or internet sites to buy these goodies immediately!

LX7022 Vintage decor stencil with DEP embossing paste

Yes, the DEP Embossing Paste is wonderfully made. This matte paste is porous and because of this characteristic you are able to stencil it beautifully with sooooo many different paints and inks etc. Today I am not going to talk about the application of the paste, but rather I am going to tell you more about how to stencil it with color. Like anything that is worth making it takes a little bit of know-how to achieve this shaded intensity. Many people who see my stenciling oooh and ahhh...but the truth is that it is just not that difficult to do. (shhhh....don't tell anyone, but you can do this too.) One thing I tell my students about stenciling is: "STENCILING- is a translucent layering of paint or ink". You can always add more ink or paint, but you can't take it off. So begin by loading your stencil brush with ink or paint and then OFF-LOAD by pressing the wet bristles into a paper towel or soft t-shirt rag. As you stencil keep the bristles flat against the surface and rouge the color onto your image, starting at the outer edge of the stencil design and then move toward the center...doing one thin layer at a time. Rouging is a circular motion, quite like brushing a colored rouge make-up onto your cheeks.

After the vintage decor stencil (LX7022) is colored, the second phase for this card was to reload the brush with the same color and pull the brush bristles from just off the edge of the card in a large STRAIGHT sweeping motion because we want the edges of the card to look "striped" the best tool to do this with is a large 3/4" stencil brush, (sometimes it is referred to as a #18 stencil brush). Do it on all four sides of the card. I finished the front of the card by putting a small amount of Beacon's Gem Tack Glue onto each paste-embossed dot in the stencil design and then added the flat backed pale blue pearls. The triple headed pin that embellishes the netting ribbon was colored with the Color Solution alcohol ink (the color was Iceberg...yes appropriate for Christmas) and then dipped it in glue and sprinkled it with ultrafine transparent glitter from Art Glitter (#97Nirvana).

The sentiment that you see inside the card was a new stamp from Woodware in the UK and here in the USA if you go to Notions site you should be able to find a list of retailers that carry their stamps. It is first stamped with Versamark ink and then white embossing powder is added and heated. Please forgive me for the less than perfect stamping job....SEE...it takes practice, right? I know I'll get better, just like you'll get better as you practice your stenciling.

Of course, there will be prizes as well. Three prize packages will be given to three commenters during this week's posts on the team's blogs, including five stencils and one nested die set. You can have an opportunity to win these goodies by leaving some holiday sweetness for each team member posting each day, to be one of the three winners for the week. Here are the team members that are inspiring you today:

Dream It Up!

Woodware UK

Laura Drahozal

Pam Hornschu

Kristi Parker Van Doren

Kristine Reynolds 

Lyn Bernatovich
Alison Heikkila

Louise Healy

Gill Wilson

Lea Kimmel

Crafty Debs

*For a stockist near you contact Woodware Craft Collection in the UK and Notions Marketing in the USA.