Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Thinking of You! on Zensdays

Laura's diva challenge this week, #211, was slowed down just a bit by a much more important challenge in her life...the necessity of taking care of her littlest one. After a very stressful trip on the way to a routine doc appointment for Artoo her dear one ended up sick in the ER in Calgary...many miles from home. In spite of this she has taken time to give us the challenge to do either Rick's version of flux or Maria's version of the same tangle. Read more about these founder's of Zentangle and their information regarding this original tangle and how it has evolved by clicking HERE. If you would like to join the challenge click HERE to find out more and link your creation.

I chose Rick's version of the tangle FLUX...somehow it just seemed to click for me. Adding a few zingers and the Florz background seems to bring it all together. I am just now noticing that "one of these leaves is not like the others...one of these leaves is just not the same"(humming the song), however I'm not too worried, because in light of our special friends' weekend visits to the hospital, in the grand scheme of things ...it's a picky thing and really doesn't matter. BTW to see Wayne's cool creation on his Flickr site click HERE.

For those of you who know Pam H., the head of the Dreamweaver Stencils design team, please send some love her way in the form of a comment on her latest blog HERE. She was in a nasty car accident last Friday and is in a load of pain. She is now home after two nights in the hospital. Thinking of you, Pammie, and Artoo as you both heal.

Dreamweaver, Stampendous, and Woodware...a Trio of Texture: Winners!


We have winners to announce for the Woodware Craft Connection, our terrific UK Distributor, and Dreamweaver Stencils Design Team Blog Hop last week.

Thank you for following along and leaving such nice thoughtful comments. We hope you have been inspired to pick up some new techniques and products through our blogs and both US and UK distribution websites.

Now for our winners! As usual, we used random.org to pick winners from the participating company and designer blogs all week, then again picked a lucky winner from each blog selected. This  week we have three US winners and three UK winners! Each will receive Nathalie Kalbach’s terrific Grunge Mixed Media Cling Rubber Stamp Set and the beautiful Zen Butterfly Dreamweaver Stencil.

Here are our winners!

US winners

Crafty-Jo from Kristine Reynolds blog
Barb Macaskill from Louise Healy's blog

UK winners

Karen Petit from Dorothy Adam's blog
Heidi from Woodware Blog Day 2
Craftyfield from Gil Wilson's Blog
Congratulations! To receive your prize you must submit your mailing address to submissions@stampendous.com

Friday, March 27, 2015

Dreamweaver, Stampendous, and Woodware...a Trio of Texture: Grand Finale


We have a different sort of collaboration for you!
All this week we've been celebrating with the awesome Woodware Design Team and the Dreamweaver Stencils Dream Team all of the the great Stampendous and Dreamweaver Stencils products that Woodware makes available to the UK market. This is good news for our crafty friends in the UK because we’re offering prizes and our UK friends are eligible to win!! We’re offering three prizes in the UK and three in the US. Each prize package will consist of Nathalie Kalbach’s terrific Grunge Mixed Media Cling Rubber Stamp Sets and the beautiful Zen Butterfly Dreamweaver Stencil! Both products are ideal for adding texture and backgrounds to your projects!
Deadline to comment is Sunday, March 29th, Pacific Time. Winners will be picked using random.org and announced Tuesday, March 31st, in the afternoon.
And that’s our theme!! Making Texture. We hope you’ve been enjoying the wonderful inspiration that three talented teams have brought you this week! Be sure to visit all the blog links listed and leave your comments! Each comment will count as an entry towards one of the terrific prize packages.

Here's the links to the designers that are playing today:

Stampendous Blog


Jamie Martin


Amy Hurley-Purdie


Janelle Stollfus


Pam Hornschu


Kristine Reynolds


Asia King


Wendy Price


Lea Kimmel


Woodware Craft Collection Blog


 Siobhan Fyffe


Dreamweaver Stencils Blog


Lyn Bernatovich


Cindy Groh


Gill Wilson


Laura Drahozal


Louise Healy


Lynn Mercurio


Alison Heikkila

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Dreamweaver, Stampendous, and Woodware...a Trio of Texture: Day Four

If you are here for the Dreamweaver monthly challenge, please scroll down to the end of the post to access the inlinkz tool! This month's winners will be announced on next week's post!
 

We have a different sort of collaboration for you!


This week we’re going to celebrate with the awesome Woodware Design Team and the Dreamweaver Stencils Dream Team all of the the great Stampendous and Dreamweaver Stencils products that Woodware makes available to the UK market. This is good news for our crafty friends in the UK because we’ll be offering prizes and our UK friends are eligible to win!! We’ll be offering three prizes in the UK and three in the US. Each prize package will consist of Nathalie Kalbach’s terrific Grunge Mixed Media Cling Rubber Stamp Sets and the beautiful Zen Butterfly Dreamweaver Stencil! Both products are ideal for adding texture and backgrounds to your projects!
Deadline to comment is Sunday, March 29th, Pacific Time. Winners will be picked using random.org and announced Tuesday, March 31st, in the afternoon.
And that’s our theme!! Making Texture. We hope you’ll enjoy the wonderful inspiration that three talented teams will bring you this week! Be sure to visit all the blog links listed and leave your comments! Each comment will count as an entry towards one of the terrific prize packages.


Here's the links to the designers that are playing today:

Stampendous Blog


Pam Hornschu


Kristine Reynolds


Lea Kimmel


Woodware Craft Collection Blog


Debs Frost


Dreamweaver Stencils Blog


Lyn Bernatovich


Gill Wilson


Laura Drahozal


Louise Healy

Lynn Mercurio

 

An InLinkz Link-up


Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Dreamweaver, Stampendous, and Woodware...a Trio of Texture: Day Three


We have a different sort of collaboration for you!

This week we’re going to celebrate with the awesome Woodware Design Team and the Dreamweaver Stencils Dream Team all of the the great Stampendous and Dreamweaver Stencils products that Woodware makes available to the UK market. This is good news for our crafty friends in the UK because we’ll be offering prizes and our UK friends are eligible to win!! We’ll be offering three prizes in the UK and three in the US. Each prize package will consist of Nathalie Kalbach’s terrific Grunge Mixed Media Cling Rubber Stamp Sets and the beautiful Zen Butterfly Dreamweaver Stencil! Both products are ideal for adding texture and backgrounds to your projects!
Deadline to comment is Sunday, March 29th, Pacific Time. Winners will be picked using random.org and announced Tuesday, March 31st, in the afternoon.
And that’s our theme!! Making Texture. We hope you’ll enjoy the wonderful inspiration that three talented teams will bring you this week! Be sure to visit all the blog links listed and leave your comments! Each comment will count as an entry towards one of the terrific prize packages.

Here's the links to the designers that are playing today:

Stampendous Blog


Amy Hurley-Purdie


Jamie Martin


Asia King


Wendy Price


Woodware Craft Collection Blog


Pam Hornschu


Dreamweaver Stencils Blog


Cindy Groh


Louise Healy

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Zensdays: It's a Spiral Kinda Day!

Ok...so I finally finished unpacking from my UK trip and found my pretty tile from Maggiebee! YEAH! I love how this design meanders and has a spiral affect... (And amazingly enough Laura Harm's challenge this week is to tangle in the spiral mode.) Maggie was so generous she let me choose one of her creations and I loved the white shading she had on this tile, there is an interesting tool she uses to shade on dark papers and it appears white. So Maggie if you are reading, could you tell us in the comments section or on your blog the name of this tool, would also love to see a picture of it. Many of the CZTs probably know what I am trying to tell you, but I thought it was such a great look. Thanks again for my tile Maggie!


Here is my tile for the #210 diva challenge. Wayne and I both had appointments today at the chiropractor's and I did the Rixty spiral while he was being seen and he did Copada for me in the center while I was being seen and then this evening I did the Florz to finish it off, so it was definitely a joint effort. But he also posted this week on his Flickr page if you want to see his spiral creation. 



I've also posted one of his sten-tangle pieces he did several months ago. The stencil used is the stylized dahlia (LG743)


I am posting it because I love the tangle he uses inside the blossoms that are spiral called Marasu. The petals remind me of pieces of peppermint candy. OK...so I bet you want to know how the background was done, huh? Me too...and Wayne reminded me that I am the one that did the background and then he did the tangle work. Hmmmm.... I've slept since then, but I think it was a technique that Marj Marion shared with me where she does a batik technique (resist tech.) using stencils. First she stencils the image with clear ink or Watermark ink and then sprinkles on white embossing powder and heats it. This embossed image acts as a resist to the next step where I sprayed the background with several colors of Memories Mist sprays. I also wiped the wet spray off of the flower with a soft cloth to give the streaked shadow you see underneath the design. To remove the white embossing powder you place a clean piece of newsprint or white copy paper on top of the image and use a hot iron to gently press and the embossing powder seeps into the paper and VIOLA you have a blank white image on which to do your tangle work. You may have to move the paper to a clean portion repeatedly until you don't see anymore of the embossing powder on the newsprint paper. But this resist technique gives you the opportunity to create other backgrounds as well, like watercolor washes or the salt on the watercolor too. I haven't tried alcohol inks, but maybe that's a possibility too.

Well, I am off to pack again, Wayne and I will be teaching in Roseville CA in a couple of days at The Stamp Art Shoppe, if we don't see you there perhaps somewhere else soon. 

(By the way I did get my purse knitted but it's still not felted, am hoping to post it while I'm  traveling and have landed somewhere that has an agitating washing machine so I can get the felting done.) Pam Hornschu, head of the Dream it UP team will be doing some posting here on Zensdays. By the way there is a great collaboration with our UK sister team going on and stencils to be won, so if you have the time go to the home page and share some love in the way of a few comments for the chance to win. Enjoy the beauty of the team's creations...it's all about texture and backgrounds.










Dreamweaver, Stampendous, and Woodware...a Trio of Texture: Day Two


We have a different sort of collaboration for you!

This week we’re going to celebrate with the awesome Woodware Design Team and the Dreamweaver Stencils Dream Team all of the the great Stampendous and Dreamweaver Stencils products that Woodware makes available to the UK market. This is good news for our crafty friends in the UK because we’ll be offering prizes and our UK friends are eligible to win!! We’ll be offering three prizes in the UK and three in the US. Each prize package will consist of Nathalie Kalbach’s terrific Grunge Mixed Media Cling Rubber Stamp Sets and the beautiful Zen Butterfly Dreamweaver Stencil! Both products are ideal for adding texture and backgrounds to your projects!
Deadline to comment is Sunday, March 29th, Pacific Time. Winners will be picked using random.org and announced Tuesday, March 31st, in the afternoon.
And that’s our theme!! Making Texture. We hope you’ll enjoy the wonderful inspiration that three talented teams will bring you this week! Be sure to visit all the blog links listed and leave your comments! Each comment will count as an entry towards one of the terrific prize packages.

Here's the links to the designers that are playing today:

Stampendous Blog


Pam Hornschu


Woodware Craft Collection Blog


Jane Gill


Dreamweaver Stencils Blog (you are here)


Gill Wilson

Monday, March 23, 2015

Dreamweaver, Stampendous, and Woodware...A Trio of Texture: Day One


We have a different sort of collaboration for you!

This week we’re going to celebrate with the awesome Woodware Design Team and the Dreamweaver Stencils Dream Team all of the the great Stampendous and Dreamweaver Stencils products that Woodware makes available to the UK market. This is good news for our crafty friends in the UK because we’ll be offering prizes and our UK friends are eligible to win!! We’ll be offering three prizes in the UK and three in the US. Each prize package will consist of Nathalie Kalbach’s terrific Grunge Mixed Media Cling Rubber Stamp Sets and the beautiful Zen Butterfly Dreamweaver Stencil! Both products are ideal for adding texture and backgrounds to your projects!
Deadline to comment is Sunday, March 29th, Pacific Time. Winners will be picked using random.org and announced Tuesday, March 31st, in the afternoon.
And that’s our theme!! Making Texture. We hope you’ll enjoy the wonderful inspiration that three talented teams will bring you this week! Be sure to visit all the blog links listed and leave your comments! Each comment will count as an entry towards one of the terrific prize packages.

Here's the links to the designers that are playing today:

Stampendous Blog

Janelle Stollfus

Pam Hornschu

Kristine Reynolds

 Woodware Craft Collection Blog

Dorothy Adam

Francoise Read

Dreamweaver Stencils Blog (you are here)

Lyn Bernatovich

Cindy Groh

Gill Wilson

Alison Heikkila

Thursday, March 19, 2015

MARCHing Into Spring: Week Three

Ready for fresh air, sunshine, new leaves, and flowers blooming? Well, the Dream Team is right there with you! Our challenge for the month of March is...coincidentally...Marching into Spring. Per usual, we'd love to have you play along with us, and link your own creations to the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog, or at the bottom of this post. Play as many times as you'd like. Those of you who work Dreamweaver and/or Stampendous products into your projects receive bonus points, but everyone has an opportunity to be the winner who receives the stencil of their choice.

Here's my hint of Spring...and a picture of my inspiration. Don't you just love the fresh spring color? I do love Spring... in fact we are having a thunderstorm right now. Yep...even in So. California we get rain occasionally.
Green spider mums have always been one of my favorite flowers. I've always seen them potted and not growing in a garden, but I'll take them in any shape or form.  




This is one of the most simple cards I've ever done. The spider mum stencil (LJ892) is quickly dry embossed through my embossing machine. Remember the stacking method: the thick white plate (if you are using the Big Shot white plate...the two tabs should follow along behind and not be folded under the white plate), the stencil face down, the paper (spray it with rubbing alcohol for more definition), the thick rubber mat (REM), then two acrylic plates (if you are using the Cuttlebug it should be the two "B" acrylic plates). Now send this stack through your Big Shot or Cuttlebug. The paper is Core-dinations- a black with a bright green core. After it's dry embossed I just sanded the embossing to discover the green core. But to give it that little extra something I used a Sakura florescent green pen from their Moonlight set and outlined the design. It took a matter of minutes to create and the actual card construction even less time. So this type of card is wonderful for that last minute occasion that makes a hand crafted creation so special.

Also want to inform those of you that enjoy taking Dreamweaver classes that Wayne and I will be teaching at The Stamp Art Shoppe in Roseville, CA on March 26 and 27. I think the classes there are full, but call or email to see if there is a possible opening.



Then today I took samples to the local store in Redlands, CA called Cracker Jacks. One daytime class on the 23rd of April and one evening class on May 5th. Call the store at 909 793-2200 for availability and details. Here are a couple samples of the class projects.

We will be paste-embossing on background papers, layering stencils, one-step cloisonné and cracked glass with a twist.

Now please take some extra time to leave a comment or two and visit the dream team to see their interpretations of "a hint of spring"!






Dream It Up! (you're here)




Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Zensdays Goes Green!

Ah...it's a touch of Irish this week as Laura Harm's challenge #209 is "green up your tile" and of course that could mean a St. Pat's Day celebration OR it could just mean that Laura and her boys are more than ready for Spring to come to Saskatchewan. Actually I think a lot of people are loving the idea of warmer weather ASAP.

My creation for the challenge was worked on a piece of black cardstock that has a "green" core. I ran the pear stencil (LL563) through my embossing machine using a thicker than normal rubber embossing mat (REM) and then sanded the embossed surface of the black paper with a very fine weight sanding block...it gave it kind of a chalky appearance. So my "strings" are the pear and just a couple of lines drawn inside of it. Then I used a Sakura florescent green gel pen from the Moonlight set and as you can tell I was still thinking of cubine (from last week's challenge)...the leaf was done with shattuck and I decided to attempt a new tangle (for me) on either side of cubine called purk. I finished off the border with paradox using the "fan" orientation of that tangle. I love paradox, but it always takes me a bit to get going on it, however once I get into the mode it is very fun and very very relaxing. um hmmmm, ohm...ohm...ohm...zen.

If you want more step-by-step instructions on how to create the tangles mentioned above go to tanglepatterns.com

For Wayne's green creation click HERE and visit his Flickr post. He doesn't tell how he achieved the green...but I watched and it started with a wash of pale and slightly darker greens... mmmm...pretty!! Then what you see as a brighter green and yellow he added with gelly roll pens. Amazing how the original light greens ended up looking gray in the final.

Here is another creation made in honor of this "GREEN" time of year! Yep, it was done with a background stencil called "GO Green" (LX7000) using the same technique of running it through the embossing machine like I did the ZIA pear described above. I tore the edges so you can see that this black paper has a green core.

And if you have a few extra minutes...come by Thursday to see another springtime creation. The Dream it UP team is celebrating Spring early and it's always nice to have a few extra comments for them from people who appreciate the paper arts.

For those of you who might remember I have taken up knitting...I am moving right along and hope to share a picture of a finished project soon...hmmm, as a matter of coincidence it is done in varying shades of green. So maybe I will have it done before the end of this week of green inspirations. Also next week week Stampendous is planning a blog hop with the Woodware design team...their  team is made up of some wonderful paper artists across the pond, just a hop, skip and a jump away. Or rather a grueling 12 hour flight from LAX to London Heathrow, sigh...I do love visiting there but really dislike the long flight. Anyway, I digress, the theme for the hop is backgrounds and textures, can't wait to see what these two teams have in mind. TTFN!!!


Thursday, March 12, 2015

A Burst of Spring from Lyn Bernatovich

Ready for fresh air, sunshine, new leaves, and flowers blooming? Well, the Dream Team is right there with you! Our challenge for the month of March is...coincidentally...Marching into Spring. Per usual, we'd love to have you play along with us, and link your own creations to the Inlinkz tool on at the bottom of this post. Play as many times as you'd like. Those of you who work Dreamweaver and/or Stampendous products into your projects receive bonus points, but everyone has an opportunity to be the winner who receives the stencil of their choice.

Pam here today, sharing a great mix of Dreamweaver and Stampendous fun...


This week's burst of springtime was created by Lyn Bernatovich. In her own words, here's the details:
I can't stop playing with the Stampendous Minuet Bird!  The card background was created with the fabulous Dreamweaver Swirl Dots (LX7029) stencil placed over a card stock panel and sprayed with Memory Mist Orange Juice.  I turned the paper and sprayed Blue Martini and let it drip down the paper.  Once dry, I stamped the Stampendous Minuet Bird in Versafine Black Onyx ink.  The bird is colored with acrylic paints from my stash.

From there, the card design took shape by tearing 3 different edges of Core'dination cardstock and layering them behind the bird panel that was also torn.  I embellished the right lower corner with Stampendous Glass Glitter.  I added the Dreamweaver fern die cut from my stash.  The 'nest' is created with May Arts mesh ribbon cut into circles and layered in three layers and held together with a brad.  I coated the mesh with Mod Podge for added stiffness.  The eggs are from my stash of Prima nests.  A double bow seam binding ribbon is tied at the top with a spring tag from Dreamweaver's Four Seasons (LJ875) that was stenciled with Splendor ink and a 1/8" stencil brush.

What has our "B" team been up to this week? Let's go see...




Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Zensdays....a Duo Tangle

What is a duo tangle? This is a term coined by Laura Harms of "iamthedivaczt" fame for using only two tangles in your tangleation. And this week she has challenged her readers to use cubine and pokeroot. (These are both tangles by Sandy Bartholomew.) Click HERE to see what Laura has created and if you get inspired join in the fun by linking your creation to her blog. (BTW...I love that Rosemarie from Nova Scotia did her first sten-tangle on a dragon last week and posted it on the Dreamweaver Stencils Facebook enthusiast page.) If you need to know how to create these two tangles there is more information and links on Laura's site to get you going. I have always loved cubine, but for more inspiration Laura directed us to a tutorial on Margaret Bremner's blog and that gave me more insight on the different ways that cubine can be done. So I created this sampler:


PLUS...this week I am using a different type of pen....in honor of my loyal employee Jennifer Davey. As we  have ended our stint of transitioning to Stampendous I have gotten a bit sad about saying goodbye. Jennifer has been with Dreamweaver for more than twenty years and she has always given positive feedback on my creations, on one condition, as long as they involve the color blue. (OK...so that's a bit of an exaggeration, but anyone that knows her can testify that she loves the color blue.) Today, with this sentiment in mind,  I did my entire duo tangle sampler with a pen she uses every day in the office. It was a bit on the wet side, so I did some of the shading with the blue gelly roll pen from Sakura and a darker blue Prisma Color pencil as well. Over the years I have even convinced her she should create her Christmas cards once in awhile using stencils, and she agreed to try it as long as they included....you guessed it...the color blue. LOL!!! Thanks Jennifer for all the fun and stability you have added to the business over the years. I will miss your daily smile and upbeat attitude that has greeted us here everyday. You are the best! And because we live in the same town...it's definitely not goodbye.

For more inspiration on cubine and pokeroot go to Wayne's Flickr site by clicking HERE to see his duo tangle for this week's diva challenge.

With regard to inspirations...thank you Maggiebee for inspiring me to get busy and learn something new. This past week I joined a hand knitting group so I can eventually knit something for our grandbaby when he arrives in July. I learned that I knit in the continental style and that bad habits are hard to break, because I have been twisting my purl stitches. LOL! So once again practice makes progress and not perfection! I am determined! 

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow to see what the design team is doing with all the Springtime goodness flowing from their creative fingertips! And think about using a stencil and joining in the stencil challenge...you could win a stencil of your choosing!

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Marching into Spring/Plus we have winners!













Ready for fresh air, sunshine, new leaves, and flowers blooming? Well, the Dream Team is right there with you! Our challenge for the month of March is...coincidentally...Marching into Spring. Per usual, we'd love to have you play along with us, and link your own creations to the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog, or at the bottom of this post. Play as many times as you'd like. Those of you who work Dreamweaver and/or Stampendous products into your projects receive bonus points, but everyone has an opportunity to be the winner who receives the stencil of their choice.

Over the years it has been such a pleasure working with different designers in relation to our stencil designs. When new stencils arrived I would be so excited to give them a try and to also share them with several sales reps and teachers I had come to know as wonderful stencilers. Elaine Benedict, originally from Illinois, was one of the most enthusiastic stencilers and still loves to create. I thought the two cards she did here using the oval die nesting set (DD004) were beautiful...what a great way to march into spring! The shasta daisy (LL3031) was first dry embossed through a machine and then stenciled with pigment inks. Once the color was added she took the largest die from the nested set and ran it through the machine. Then she mounted it with foam tape lifting it just slightly above the level of the rest of the card.


The bearded iris (LL516) was done in a similar manner, but instead of just one oval die she used all three of the nested dies at once and then lifted the largest one with one layer of the foam tape, the second oval piece with two layers of foam and the middle piece with three layers of the foam stacked one on top of the other. Then the get well was paste-embossed with Glossy Blue Embossing Paste. (DGBP)

As you know the past few weeks we have received more new designs and it has been fun to send them out to our design team. I am fortunate to have such great designers on our team...their work is really inspiring and so please take time to make the rounds and see what they have put their hearts and souls into creating this past week as we March into Spring. And please leave them a comment or two, so they are encouraged that you are reading and following their creative progress.


I'd also like you to celebrate with our winners for the month of February:

FEBRUARY CHALLENGE WINNERS:
#46 D.ANN C
#58 HEIDI SCHLEIMER
You have both won a stencil of your choice and a bonus stencil because you used Dreamweaver Stencils products! Please send me an email with your choices as we will get your winnings to you as soon as possible! My email is lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com






Blog Archive