Who who who won the Dreamweaver/Imagine Crafts Endless HOP......HERE's Who!

Another owl card...this time it is the small "OWL BUDDY" (LL3039) also in the new owl die set(DG741)

OUR THREE RANDOMLY CHOSEN WINNERS ARE:

ROBIN B.said on John Creighton Petersen's blog: "What a great Father's Day card."

KATIE said on Pam Hornschu's blog: "Beautiful canvas."

HEATHER T.said on Lynn Mercurio's blog: "That is just amazing."

So if you don't know the drill...please email me your snail mail address and we will ship you the wonderful Staz-on inks ...which are coming from Tsukineko and the stencils and dies from Dreamweaver Stencils. My email? lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com

And once again thank you to all who joined this endless hop and shared such lovely comments with our design teams. They work very hard before these events and it's been so nice to have your TLC (tender loving comments) to cheer them on!

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

Dreamweaver and Imagine Crafts: Endless Possibilities-Day Four

 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

Here's my creation for today... if you are here to see who the random winner is of "should we make the elephant stencil a die?"....scroll down to the very bottom of this post. Before I get going here is the wonderful line up of designers today. I have added this list to the bottom of my post as well.

Dream It Up!

Pam Hornschu

Darsie Bruno

Isha Gupta 
Kristi Parker Van Doren

Louise Healy

Sylvia Blum 

Gill Wilson

Kristine Reynolds 

Baerbel Born

Laura Drahozal 

Lea Kimmel  

Alison Heikkila

New Stylized Dahlia Die (DG743)

There's so much to say today! We've been having such a great time with the Imagine Crafts blog hop that I almost forgot it's Thursday and the "Old, New, Borrowed, Blue- Challenge" is on some of your minds. Again I went CRAZY with some of these NEW products and it wasn't hard to showcase both our challenge and our blog hop.

First of all I BORROWED from Dream it UP team members Louise Healy and Pam Hornschu...they are always fun to "CASE" (which means copy and say everything). Using the idea of designing both the negative and positive portion of a die cut was a great idea they had and it was a blast to play with and as you will see...the Tsukineko Neon inkpads (NEW to me) are addictive too. Also NEW to me is our new stylized dahlia die (DG743). The two thank you sentiments (LG691) are on the same stencil and the stylized dahlia stencil (LG743) have both been around the block, so OLDer is on today's agenda and as you can tell by this first sample blue is also used (well turquoise is a variety of blue right?). So OLD, NEW, BORROWED AND BLUE!!! and of course welcome to our hop with the wonderful Imagine Crafts design team. Be sure to leave them some TLC in the way of some encouraging comments on what you enjoyed the most about their post for today!

Stylized Dahlia stencil (LG743) used with the (DG743) new die

Here is the second card which is "the positive" part of the cards I CASEd from Louise and Pam.

At this point I will do a tutorial so you can see how  this all came together. I know that many of you are like me and seeing things created can really clear up technique issues.

The very first thing that I did was the background ...this is where I had so much fun with the Neon inkpads from Imagine Crafts. I don't know how many of you remember the fabric called "seersucker" or "plissé", but this embossed plaid fabric of yesteryear was my inspiration for the background.

The NEW Neon pigment inkpads by Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko

The plaid stencil (LX7002) was first placed onto a piece of scrap paper and the Electric Green  Neon inkpad was tapped all over the striped design.

The thick white mat is placed onto the Big Shot with a piece of pink scrap paper added to keep things from getting inky. Then the inked stencil was added. VERY IMPORTANT...the stripes of the stencil need to go in the direction of the black stripes you see on the machine in the background. If not your stencil could get tweaked and ruined in the process. This is only a discovery I made after we tweaked about three stencils in a class I was teaching. I had place the stencil perpendicular to those lines instead of parallel and the roller twisted the stencil. (Experience can be an expensive teacher.)

This is the finished stack. Thick white plate with the tabs following through behind.  Pink scrap to keep things clean. The metal stencil with the stripes parallel with the black stripes on the machine. The Stamping Details thick rubber mat --you can buy it at stencilwithstyle.com. Finish off with two acrylic plates and run this stack through the machine.

Please take note...although these bowed acrylic plates are fine for die cutting they are really hard on your stencil if you are trying to emboss with them through your embossing machine....your stencil will become bowed just like the curved plate you see here.  My suggestion is to use a set of acrylic plates only for dies (they will end up like this one). Then get a fresh set and use them only with your stencils. You won't be sorry...it is worth every penny.

Clean off the LX7002 plaid making stencil by wiping it with a dry paper towel and prepare it with the blue Neon inkpad the same as you did with the green Neon. But remember to place the stencil on the scrap paper in the same direction at you did the first time, BUT this time turn the paper you have already run through so that it is perpendicular to the stencils stripes. Complete the stack as you did above and run it through the machine.

Your paper is now embossed and colored using the same process...I call this a form of letterpress. This is what makes it look like seersucker fabric which was often plaid and kind of puckery or embossed. 

I put some of the Dreamweaver Matte Black Embossing Paste onto the paste spreader, this makes it easier to paste on the uneven embossed surface of the plaid paper.

Tape out the edges of the stencil and paste-emboss the  surface of the embossed background paper. Use a gentle pressure so it doesn't squish under the stencil. 

Remove three sides of the tape and using the last piece of tape as a hinge remove the stencil. Set this paste-embossed image aside to dry while you are die-cutting your Dahlia pieces.

I am adding a double mounting sticky paper (MPDS) to the back of my pink floral paper, by removing one side of the release paper and putting the tacky side against the back you can then run it through the machine and remove the other release paper later when you want to add the now sticky pieces to the dry embossing paste.

The stack for die cutting is slightly different. The thick white plate and both tabs are used...in fact I add an additional piece of chipboard as a shim. Next use one of the acrylic plates, the floral paper face up, the Dahlia die (DG743) and top it off with your second acrylic plate. Now run this through the machine.

Remove the die and use our tiny tipped stylus (ETXSM) which great for poking out hard to remove die pieces. Then remove the second release paper from each piece and mount onto the dry Matte Black paste-embossed image.

I also used our NEW oval nesting dies to die cut some of the same floral paper for the vertical thank you (LG691) and paste-embossed it with the Dreamweaver Matte Black Embossing Paste (DMBP). Also added was just a bit of bling in the way of four crystals down the side of the flower. I added one other color of paper (yellow) for the blossoms for added interest.

As I said earlier this week I have kind of gone crazy creating with the NEW inks and materials sent by Tsukineko/Imagine Crafts...so below is another creation I did with the Neon inkpads and as you can tell I have plenty of plaid "seersucker" paper for future projects too. Be sure to link up below with inlinkz if you are here for this month's challenge and of course all the designers are waiting to find out what you think of the beauties they have created for you this week...can't wait to see what they've done as well!

Dream It Up!

Pam Hornschu

Darsie Bruno

Isha Gupta
Kristi Parker Van Doren 

Louise Healy

Sylvia Blum 

Gill Wilson

Kristine Reynolds 

Baerbel Born

Laura Drahozal 

Lea Kimmel  

Alison Heikkila

LG756 elephant and LX7014 Daisies

RANDOM WINNER of the Dream it UP comment-ary on whether or not you would buy a die of the elephant design is:

Janice K. who said, " A die would be great especially if you produced a smaller (baby elephant) size one as well".

Hi Janice, please email me your snail mail addy at lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com
and I will send you the following: read on....

It's your day LG704 stencil and LX7002 plaid maker stencil

We are sending you the hot pink and bright orange Neon inkpads from Imagine Crafts and the elephant stencil LG756. Thank you for reading through my blog carefully and contributing to the vote and comment-ary as to whether or not we should make this elephant into a die. We have decided to make a smaller stencil version of the elephant and a die of both sizes and we'll give it a try ....based on the comments of our customers.

An InLinkz Link-up

Dreamweaver and Imagine Crafts: Endless Possibilities-Day Three

 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

Today I am taking a break and letting the designers have at it...be sure to leave them some encouragement by telling them what you like best....for a random drawing and an added gift just leave me a comment on whether or not you would purchase a die of the elephant. I had several helpful comments yesterday and am looking for a few more today...will reveal the random winner for that tomorrow....until then...

Imagine the possibilities of what everyone has created!

Dream It Up!
Kazuko Kocho
Lynn Mercurio
Louise Healy
Jamie Martin

Nancy Hawes 
Kristine Reynolds
Pam Hornschu

Cathy Andronicou
Lyn Bernatovich

Dreamweaver and Imagine Crafts: Endless Possibilities-Day Two

 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

Here's my creation for today:

Today's creation was done using the positive pieces from yesterday's design ( another name for this is called paper piecing) and glued onto Matte Yellow Embossing Paste.

 Remember yesterday I used the elephant stencil, traced it onto the back of the splattered piece of paper and cut out the pieces, set them aside and blogged about the negative that you see here below.

Yesterday's elephant creation was cut out of sprayed paper and placed over the top of  black paper that was stenciled with the mosaic background stencil LJ901...or the negative image.

LG756 elephant stencil

Well, today I designed a card using these cut out pieces or the positive set. This is a technique called paper piecing. People that have dies do it all the time, but since the elephant isn't a die I had to cut out the pieces by hand. Here are the two stencils I used today, well actually I also used the Celebrate stencil LS89, so that would be three stencils:

To prepare the paisley design a stenciled the surface of the gray background cardstock using the Paisley stencil LX7009 with a black Memento ink by Imagine Crafts and then added some color to that stenciled area with the soufflé pens in a florescent yellow. Next I paste-embossed this paisley background with the Dreamweaver Matte Yellow Embossing Paste (DMYP) using the elephant stencil (LG756) and set it aside to dry well.

LX7009 paisley stencil

The pieces which were cut out from the elephant stencil yesterday (or the positive set) were glued to the now dry Matte Yellow Embossing Paste using white glue. The irRESISTible spray in a metallic by Imagine Crafts, added not only a sparkle but also a texture to this guy. LOVE these fun products from Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko. The celebrate stencil LS89 was also paste-embossed with the same Matte Yellow Embossing Paste (DMYP) and made into a tag as an embellishment and tied with the May Arts Ribbon bow.

Remember to take time to see what everyone else has created today and leave some love in the way of an encouraging comment or two. In fact an extra gift will be randomly chosen from those who comment on my blog about whether or not you would use the elephant if we made him into a die for paper piecing.

Dream It Up!
Louise Healy
Kristi Parker Van Doren

Penny Ward 
Pam Hornschu

Maureen Cronin

Dreamweaver and Imagine Crafts: Endless Possibilities-Day One

 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

With Father's Day around the corner I couldn't resist doing my first creation for this collaboration with "DAD" in mind. This is what the inside of my card looks like. I paste-embossed the Dreawmeaver Gold Embossing Paste (DGP) using the Happy Father's Day stencil (LM244) on the inside of my black card and heated it with a heat gun to give it the molten magic look. Then I went crazy playing with the wonderful products below.

Here are the two Imagine Crafts products that inspired me:

This yummy gold pigment ink was easy to use and had such good coverage that I actually had to use a very light touch to get some of the black paper to show through with the stenciling. I stenciled the mosaic stencil (LJ901) with this Delicata metallic ink onto a panel of black cardstock and then set it aside to dry while I played with more new products in the next step.

This irRESISTible spray by Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko squirts out in splatters onto the card stock. If you are expecting only a fine mist ....get that idea out of your head, it sprays both fine and large splots. I sprayed it onto a gray cardstock and the metallic splots took a few minutes to dry. Once it is dry, if you run your hand over the paper they are actually raised or embossed. It's a very interested idea...I LIKE IT! And once I got going I became distracted and was trying every color they had, believe me you will want to do the same.  I don't know about you but I find working with sprays very addictive. But I digress....enough about my addictions, back to...well...my addictions.

I then traced the elephant stencil (LG756) onto the backside of the gray splattered cardstock and had Wayne assist me in the process by cutting out the pieces of the elephant with a craft knife. I later did another one and found that my handy cuticle scissors work well too, so if you don't have a hubby who's crafty or artistic it isn't hard to fussy cut this guy out. I am going to use the cut out pieces on a card for Tuesday, but here is what the card looks like once I placed the gray cut out piece (the negative...it looks like a stencil doesn't it?) over the black and gold mosaic stenciled piece which was done earlier...very elegant and manly, don't you think? I HAD to put the metallic bow on his tail, just to add that touch of well, ...this is from your daughter or this is from the mother of your children or,....just need to tone down the testosterone a bit by adding a bow.

Just Imagine the possibilities of what everyone has created! Be sure to leave some nice comments for a chance to win the goodies listed above.

Dream It Up!

Debbie Gaetz 

Louise Healy

Allie Gower 

Lyn Bernatovich 

Alison Heikkila 

Tina McDonald 

Pam Hornschu  

Old, New, Borrowed, Blue: A New Challenge for the Month of June (Plus) Winners from May's Challenge

New nest stencil (LL3041)

At Dreamweaver Stencils, we love to make our monthly challenges something for everyone, and not so strict that no one wants to play along. This month our challenge is, "Old, New, Borrowed, Blue", with the obvious thought being a wedding theme...but not necessarily. Add an old embellishment or picture. Use a new stencil design or technique. Borrow, or CASE (copy and say everything) another designers project, and obviously, blue...is blue. Where will YOUR creative process take you for this month? We'd love to see! And remember, linking your creations with the Inklinkz tool at the end of the team posts, provides you with the opportunity to win the stencil of your choice!

I found this scrumptious paper by 7Gypsies this week and was totally inspired to use the new nest stencil (LL3041) with this 6 x 6 inch stack of paper titled: "Conservatory" which  I purchased at a local stamp store ( I love to give the local stores my business). This wonderful tablet had several other bird and nature related designs that were just too wonderful to resist. My only regret was that the store didn't have more than one tablet, so if you want to purchase this oldie but goodie and can't find it from your favorite retailer follow the link for the name of the paper tablet: "Conservatory".

The nest's "definition" was from a dictionary (another oldie from my paper source library...but I guess this could fall under the category of old and borrowed) and I scanned it and added the "Enjoy your new home" sentiment toward the bottom. Then after printing it out I aged it by roughing up the edges with a craft knife and used a large stencil brush to add some of Tim's Distress Inks (vintage photo and peeled paint). This vintage look is the "old" part of my post challenge today.

The nest stencil (LL3041) was first paste-embossed with the regular Dreamweaver Embossing Paste (DEP). Once it was dry the stencil was repositioned over the paste-embossed image and the Versamark pad was applied onto the image using a jumbo dauber (KD02) from Imagine Crafts (also known as Tsukineko). Remove the stencil and the surface is now ready to sprinkle with the Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE). Notice how the egg (and all of the nest) has white speckles all over it....this is the UTEE. Heat emboss this lightly sprinkled surface to melt the UTEE and then reposition the nest stencil and added the blue onto the eggs by stenciling with the Splendor inkpad called CIRCUS. I love this particular inkpad because it has so many colors in one spot...a great palette for stenciling. Then I stenciled the rest of the nest with warm colors from "MAGIC" Splendor inkpad. After stenciling I removed the stencil and sprinkled the entire surface of the nest with UTEE. This time it totally covered the nest ...I tapped off the excess and heated it with a heat gun. This technique is known as faux cloisonné and can be done a couple of different ways. 

So this is my "Old" (a vintage look), "New" (a new stencil design plus the theme of the card...for a friend with a NEW home), "Borrowed" (the definition of "nest" from the dictionary) and Blue (the speckled eggs and outer cardstock colored blue). Now, remember you don't have to do all of these in one card...for some reason my creation today worked out that way, but do join us this month for our challenge and link up below with inlinkz. Next week (BTW) we will be doing a blog hop with Tsukineko's design team...don't forget to stop by for the chance to win some really nice prizes. And today, be sure to visit the team listed below for their version of this month's challenge....until then here are our winners...yes I threw in another prize.

WINNER'S FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE'S CHALLENGE

YES, two random winners today...just for the fun of it. One happens to be from the UK and not sure where our other winner is from...!
The #7 creation by: JENNY WILLIAMS
The #25 creation by: Clubdag Project CM
Now, be sure to email me your snail mail addy and your favorite stencil choice to: lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

An InLinkz Link-up