Julie from Down Under

Julie Makela lives just south of Brisbane, Queensland in Australia. She is an absolute marvel when it comes to using Dreamweaver Stencils. In the past few years she finished her degree in Art and her love for mixed media shows in everything she does. I am always fascinated with her ability to layer and cut things. Here I am showing cards she has done using some of this mixed media pizzazz. Behind the penguins she sculpted white emboss paste to create the mountains. The penguins (LL560) were paste embossed with black embossing paste onto an acetate film and once they were dry she turned the piece over. Using just a bit of the white embossing paste on a brush...she painted their bellies and other white parts on the back of the acetate. Then when that was dry she cut the acetate close to their heads and mounted them on the mountains, hiding the mounting tape on the reverse side of the penguins.

The lizards (LM2004) were done in a similar manner, pasted onto acetate, however this time she sprinkled glitter onto the wet embossing paste. When this was dry she turned the acetate over and colored the back of the acetate using acrylic on a brush, then when this dried she cut out the lizards and mounted them with foam mounting tape onto a white cardstock. This white paper was dry embossed with the petal background stencil (LJ899) and just a bit of ink was loaded onto either a large foam dauber or large stencil brush and then brushed across the dry embossed petals to leave a hint of color.

Julie is the one responsible for teaching me the "JAC" paper technique...remember the cardinal that Louise Healy did early on...I mentioned how Julie does this unique effect in one of my first blog postings. I hope to see Julie Makela at CHA in 2011 and I know she will be sharing some new techniques at one of the booths there. Stay in touch to hear more as we get closer to the New Year. By the way Julie, when you get a chance to read this...if one of the above steps is not quite right just let us know in the comment section.

Tips on Embellishing Paste with Micro Beads

Marj is another Dreamweaver Stencil teacher and calls the Pacific Northwest area home. Wish I lived close enough to join her classes at the store, Art n' Soul in Lacey Washington. She has many innovative ideas and the cards you see here are samples of a wonderful technique of using micro beads on top of the Dreamweaver Embossing Pastes. Her recommendations for sprinkling on the beads is to leave the stencil in place. The reason for this is that if you take the stencil off after doing the pasting and then try to sprinkle the beads on the wet paste...then those little round devils just slide down into the detail of the design and in this case the creation just becomes a turtle shape rather than a sea turtle (LM179) with a "dude" personality. Next you have to deal with beads stuck all over your pasted stencil when you go to scrub it in your pan of water. So Marj suggests that you go ahead and wash the stencil in a pan of water and then place a strong paper towel into a strainer and pour your dirty paste water through this paper towel to catch all the excess beads. Great idea Marj, I have done this in a couple of classes and people love the idea of being able to capture them and reuse them once they are dried. I also love the free form pasting Marj did on the background piece of the turtle card. And I am also posting a dragon (LL588) done with the same technique. The background is bamboo (LL533) stenciled with a metallic ink.

Metallic F/X Finesse

People have had quite a few questions lately about how to use the Metallic F/X powders. I like using them on the Black Embossing Pastes, but you can use them on any color. Both the Matte and the Glossy pastes will give you some startling results. I love contrast and the Peacock (LG731) you see here was pasted with the Dreamweaver Glossy Black Embossing Paste onto a metallic white card stock. To dry my pasted pieces more quickly I have a very large old electric skillet that I put on the warm (lowest) setting and then place my pasted pieces into it. To dry it this way takes less than 25 min. for the glossy pastes to dry and less than 15 min. for the matte pastes, this is less than half the usual time. I then repositioned the stencil onto the dried design and tapped the Stamp & Stick Gluepad all over the stencil using a jumbo foam dauber. I used the color "kiwi" for the leafy swirls and when I load my gold handled Dreamweaver stencil brush I just dip it 1/8" into the powder and then tap tap tap the excess into the lid of the powder to remove the excess and push the powder up into the bristles. When I work on top of the "glossy" paste, which is any of them that have a slick shiny look to them when they are dry, I use a stippling technique for application or a tap tap tapping motion. I used the colors- sapphire, purple satin, glacier lake, goldfinch and gold dust to stencil the bird. If you want to shade with a second color, base coat the area you are working on with the stippling application and then daub on more of the Palette Stamp & Stick Glue to this same area, because you have covered up the glue with your first coat of Metallic F/X. Now you will stencil this same area again by adding your next color for a shaded effect. This time you can use a stroking motion or circular rouging technique to achieve a smooth airbrushed look. Since I like contrast I often leave some of the black glossy paste showing through rather than filling it entirely with color. I believe this contrast will really makes your stenciling pop! When you take the stencil off of the design you may notice a bit of a haloing of the Metallic F/X, sort of like dust, on your background paper. The Swiffer dusting refill cloths can be used to pick up this excess powder. Just do it gently so that your work does not smear. Enjoy!

Stenciling in Upstate New York

Theresa Winters is another talented stenciling teacher. She owns a small rubber stamp store in Rome, NY called Sweethearts Rubber Stamps. She also travels the New England area and teaches stenciling classes as a Dreamweaver Stencils independent sales rep. A while back she was working in her classroom and had pasted the horses (LL559) you see here with the metallic copper embossing paste and set them aside and started working on a project using the Metallic F/X powders. When she turned back to pick up the horse card she realized that the pasted piece had a fine sprinkling of metallic mica powders all over it. Evidently there was a fan blowing across the room and it had carried a fine mist of the mica powders that she had been working with onto her horses that were in the process of drying. Just another opportunity to develop a new technique. She also suggested that if you have a stencil design that is delicate that you don't leave the stencil on while you are sprinkling the image with powders, because if you leave the stencil on too long when you try to take it off the paste will have dried into the stencil and the paper may rip. I know the complaint is that the powder then gets all over the cardstock. She recommends that once it is dry take a Swiffer dust cloth and pick up the powder on the background areas. These Swiffer cloths are great for cleaning up glitter and small particles of metallic leafing as well. Theresa has many other techniques up her sleeve and if you are ever in the Rome, NY area you must drop in to see her store. She will soon be teaching in the Boston area at "Ink About It", Westford, Mass. Her classes fill quickly so call sooner than later.

Rubout Technique

I am a bit biased about this next paper artist, mostly because we happen to be genetically connected. My daughter Elizabeth has the surprising ability to create without any restraints. Which is only one of the reasons why she is often discovering new techniques. As a card designer for Dreamweaver during her teenage years, Elizabeth was often given a task to create something specific and in her easy laid back approach to the projects at hand she would often discover some fun twist that would take her down a creative back alley searching for her muse. Anyway that's what it seemed like to me...this is interpreted as her taking the project in a different direction with a minor "slip up" and in the process of trying to get back on track creating a totally new technique. How often do each of us "mess up" and in the journey to salvage our creations do we come up with something totally inspired? The saying "Necessity is the mother of invention" is Elizabeth's mantra. The card pictured here is one of her innovative approaches to working with the Memories Mists, both the regular and Vivid lines. The Vivids are a highly pigmented type of spray, and the colors are fairly electric, almost florescent. First she blended these two types of sprays onto glossy cardstock to create a background, by spraying two or three layers of color on top of each other. While these sprays were still wet... she moved the color like a faux finish artist, by wadding up either a soft rag or a dry paper towel she would blend the colors together before they dried completely. After waiting a few minutes to let the piece cure a bit she would then place the stencil where she wanted it. Next she used a soft cloth to rub the ink out of the stencil openings. This process rubs down one color and leaves the first layer of color that was sprayed onto the glossy paper showing through. She discovered that if she waited too long and the background dried too much she would need to dampen her cloth with "Windex" or rubbing alcohol. Just damp though, because too much wetness would cause the paper to deteriorate and she would lose the layered color effects. Recently I decided to teach her technique and when I asked her what she would like to recommend to people trying these techniques for the first time, she said that the hardest thing for her was learning to keep the tools clean. The next time she went to use the sprays the atomizers had plugged up, the Vivid sprays are great because they are highly pigmented, but that also means you have to clean them afterwards with really hot water so you can use them again successfully. I have to admit that keeping my tools and work area clean is a bit of a struggle for me as well, I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all. lol! Although stenciling happens to be my passion and not hers, I am inspired by her creative endeavors time after time.

Salt Lake City Teachers

Last year about this time I got an email from a stencil enthusiast and cardmaker, Willi Haslam, from the Salt Lake City area. She had been to a scrapbooking expo there and discovered our embossing paste. She then wanted to know where she could get more of our products in here area the next time she needed something. My heart sank because I had to write back to say that at this time not even one retailer carried our line of stencils in all of Utah. But as we correspondended, I asked if she knew of anyone in the area that might be interested in teaching and representing our line to stores. She eventually wrote back and said that she and a couple of friends loved paper crafting and might be interested in sharing the products with stores. After that I traveled to Utah and met with Willi and two other friends, Jana Larsen and Cheryl Wilcox. This was the beginning of a good friendship and I am fortunate they are such enthusiastic paper artisans. They are not only card makers, but scrapbookers as well. (And Willi loves to quilt and sew too). You can take their classes at Heartfelt Creations in Sandy, UT and Wholesale Clearance Outlet in Bountiful, UT. I just met with them again last week and decided that the three of them have way too much fun stenciling and paper crafting. LOL! Too bad for me huh? The card you see here is done by Willi and represents what you can do with some beautiful preprinted papers, glossy blue embossing paste was used on the happy birthday stencil (LM248). She positioned the corner flourish stencil and daubed on just a bit of the Palette brand stamp and stick glue pad using a large foam dauber. As an innovative tool she used the tip of her finger and rubbed the Moonstone Metallic F/X powder into the the stencil (LJ896). If you happen to be in the Salt Lake City area be sure to check out their upcoming classes in the aforementioned stores.

Sludge Paste Technique

Dolly Brennan is also from the Chicago area and teaches and demonstrates for two or three stores there and also makes it up into Wisconsin too. Dolly used to own her own small stencil store and I feel fortunate that she is willing to travel and teach using the Dreamweaver Stencil line these days. I loved how she used the elongated punch to give this whale a watery feel. Sludge pasting is a technique where you can take two or three or even more colors of paste and pull them across a stencil for this beautiful mixed effect. The trick (it seems like there always is one, huh?) is to not overwork it. I like to place two or three colors of the paste down at one end of the stencil and then pull them across in one sweep if I can manage it. Dolly will be teaching this Fall at Stamp, Scrap N' More in Mundelein, IL (website address:www.stampscrapnmore.com) and she also teaches at Creative Cuts & Crafts, Villa Park, IL (www.creativecutsandcrafts.com)