Hoppy Spring! Sketch Challenge #4

 The Queen of Stenciling, Lynell, is away this week, so this is Pam Hornschu here to inspire you with a springy card this week. Our sketch challenge this week was created by our own Louise Healy and can be seen at left. For today's post, the card I made tips the sketch on it's side so that the flap opens from bottom to top. Four stencils were used for this, but don't let that intimidate you. The Egg (LG670) shape is one stencil, where the white cardstock was run through my Big Shot in order to emboss the egg shape. The stencil was placed over the raised surface, and I air-brushed the background. I then paste-embossed in white the Long Daffodils (LL428) stencil and set that aside to dry. The aqua cardstock was run through the Big Shot with the Stripes (LX7002) stencil to add texture. I added the little paste-embossed Small Bunny (LS1007) in the corner. Once all of the pasted portions were dry, I added a touch of pink to the ears, nose, and toes of the bunny with a Copic marker. The daffodils and stems were alternately masked off so that I could air-brush the color and shading on them as well. The Hoppy Easter (LM291) on the inside of the
card was also air-brushed. A cute print paper was added to the flap along with some fuzzy pompom trim. The egg was trimmed with a scalloped edge. All very bright and springy! Now is your opportunity to visit the blogs of our super talented team. If Lynell is the Queen of Stenciling, our ladies are the Princesses of Paste! Hee hee. Anyway, check them out for more inspiration, play along, and post your link to our Mr. Linky at the bottom of this post. We love to see where your creativity takes you as well!

Thursday's Dream Schemes/Free Challenge this Week!

Happy St. Patrick's Day...let's CELEBRATE! This beautiful " green" card comes to us from design team member, Laura Drahozal. Laura just got back from visiting the UK so we hope you will have time to visit her blog (follow the sidebar at the right to find your way). Be sure to go back a week on her blog to see some of her photos of the London area and some of her "card" work while she was there demonstrating at a very large crafting trade show in Birmingham. She even has a couple of her Dreamweaver cards pictured on her blog last week that are being shown on a QVC show in England. Today, on her blog, you will see a variation on this Celebrate card...leave a comment if you get the chance, we love to be encouraged.

This card began with Laura creating a background with the new plaid making stencil (LX7002). This new size of stencil is square and has a series of large and small stripes. It is great for several different backgrounds, you can use it to just stencil a background like Laura did. She used an applicator in her picture here or you can also use it with embossing paste. When the new DVDs are ready there will be a segment on using this stencil in a couple of different ways. That DVD is almost ready to go to press...(is that what they call it when they make a DVD???), or I guess I should say it is almost ready to go to the "Duplicators". We'll keep you posted on both of the DVD's progress. The paper that Laura started with was already green and had a narrow diagonal stripe in a darker green that she aligned her striped stencil against. She used distress inks to stencil in greens, then turned her stencil at a 90 degree angle and stenciled in blue.

The four leaf clover stencil (LS58) and the vertical celebrate stencil (LM283) were embossed on aluminum metal by running them through an embossing machine and then they were colored with a green Adirondack alcohol ink. Then to make the metal shine through she sands the embossed clovers and the celebrate sentiment with a sanding block.

The small four leaf clover that is hanging on the ribbon was shrink plastic. Laura is a master with using the stencils on shrink plastic to create these "lucky charms". She sands the shrink plastic first so the ink will adhere to the plastic and uses a 1/4" hole punch at the apex of the leaves, so that when it shrinks she will have somewhere on the charm to attach the ribbon to...don't forget since it will be shrinking you will want this hole to be fairly large. This little charm was then colored with green ink. "What type of ink?"...you ask. I believe she used the same alcohol inks that she used on the metal, but I have discovered that if you "do" sand the shrink plastic in advance then several different types of ink will work...Brilliance inks, Chalk inks, and permanent inks like Staz-on.

If you have questions about how Laura's card was made, please ask her in my comments section and she will pop by to answer when she gets the chance. Don't forget to visit the other members creations this week too.

Hope you take time this week to join our challenge...it doesn't have to be St. Patrick's Day themed... it doesn't have to be on metal...it doesn't even have to be a stencil, just make it something you want to share with us. It is a free challenge week, so play along if you get the chance and we'll come visit your blog to see what you have been up to, so just sign in on Mr. Linky below.

Thursday's Dream Schemes/Study in Blue, Brown and Cream

It's a colorway challenge this week. YAY!!! I love it when we do color challenges. This week, dream team member Kim Parkinson, chose the colors blue, brown and cream. I love these colors...I used them in my "California Country" living room in the early 80s. Hmmm...dating myself here. I digress though, so here is how I rendered my card:

I found a piece of medium brown metallic cardstock and paste embossed the jungle leaves background stencil (LJ825) onto it using glossy black embossing paste (DGKP). Immediately after removing the stencil, I sprinkled the wet paste with a medium brown color of Fun Flock sold by Stampendous. About 30 minutes into the drying time (that's about halfway dry if you are not forcing it dry in an electric skillet), I gently (very very gently) pressed the flocking into the paste using a piece of cardboard over the top of the flocking material. I have found if you don't do this, then the flocking sits on the surface and tends to be somewhat sparse on a detailed design like this one. This light pressure will push more of the flocking particles into the nearly dry paste. When this flocked cardstock had dried for at least an hour, I tapped off the excess flocking and cut the flocked cardstock into four 7/8" x 5" pieces. I mounted these strips on a cream colored cardstock called Tsumugi Ivory sold by Hanko designs and mitered each strip to come together at a 45 degree angle on each corner. This forms a square frame for my centerpiece design.

I have always referred to this stencil as "the cardinal" (LM110), but when you are in charge of the brushes and inks you can make this crested bird be whatever you want, and I am creating a bluish jay that is often seen here on the West coast. It is called a Stellar Jay, and yes, we do have dogwood trees here as well. Stellar Jays are a vivid turquoise blue on their backs and a very dark blue/brown on their heads. When I was finished stenciling I glued crystals in the centers of the flowers and the jay's eye. And violá! ...a cardinal when you have a red color challenge and a Stellar jay when you have blue in your color challenge.

So join us this week and play along with Kim's blue, brown and cream colorway challenge. Just sign up with Mr. Linky below and others will have the opportunity to view your creation.

Thursday's Dream Schemes/Faux Cross Stitch and the Plaidmaking Stencil

Welcome to Thursday's Dream Schemes...it is a free challenge week for the team and I have decided to do the Faux Cross-stitch Technique and also use the new stripe stencil (LX7002) to do some plaidmaking with the Memories Mists sprays as you see in the background of this card.

The faux cross stitch technique was done on top of the Dreamweaver Embossing Paste (DEP) after it was dry. To do this simple technique first paste the two owls stencil (LL3013), remove the stencil and set the pasted cardstock aside for half an hour to dry. While it is drying you can do the background. Our new Plaid maker stencil is a stencil with stripes. You can place your cardstock in a cardboard box, and position the striped stencil on this cardstock and spray it with the Memories Mist color green tea (MM19)... holding the spray bottle about 12-18 inches away from the stencil. Then gently pick up the stencil and turn it 90 degrees and place it on the same cardstock so the next stripes will be perpendicular to the first ones you sprayed with the green tea color. This time use the Wheatgrass color (MM05) to now create the plaid effect. Just a couple of spritzes with the Memories Mists spray bottle is all you need. You want wherever the colors overlap to be somewhat translucent to create that third color and if you spray too heavily you won't get this effect.

Now that the paste is dry, reposition the stencil (LL3013) onto the owls, and very lightly stencil some soft tones onto the owls...I used pale gray, and light brown pigment inks onto the owls and yellow onto beaks and talons and finish this first layering with a pale green on the leaves. Next position a small piece of fiberglass screen (SC) at a diagonal on top of the stencil using removable tape. Now this time you will want to stencil darker colors through the screen, dark grays onto the light gray and dark brown onto the light brown areas. The beak and branch also receive the darker brown and the leaves a brighter green. Remove the screen and stencil their eyes with a dark gray or black ink.

The saying was done digitally but I used the "hoot" stencil (LG734) and made just a bit of bright green embossing paste by mixing green tube acrylic into my regular matte embossing paste (DEP).

If anyone would like to play along you can do so. The faux cross stitch technique is quite simple and there are variations on it too. You can dry emboss first instead of paste-embossing or you can stencil directly onto cardstock. If you are interested in the instructions you can email me at lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com and as for the Faux Cross-stitch instruction sheet and I will email them to you.

Thursday's Dream Scheme's/ A lovely sketch from Terrece

Dream Team member, Terrece Sidoway, put together this Dream Scheme for today's sketch challenge, so play along if you get inspired. I did this card with stencils, stencil brushes, and the Memories Mists Sprays.

I love this brand of sprays because the colors are intense, plus they dry to the touch in just seconds on regular cardstock.

To keep the Memories Mists contained I made a "spray booth" out of a cardboard box, placed my paper inside and then sprayed the entire paper with the Pale Ale color of Memories Mists Spray, so this is the background color behind the bird and swirls. To accomplish this, hold the spray bottle about 12-18 inches away from the paper. Position the stencil where you want your design to be sprayed. (When you are spraying stencils with the Memories Mists do not use tape to position the stencil on the cardstock because the moisture from the spray will cause the tape to leave a sticky residue on the paper.) Now hold a piece of copy paper over the part of the card that extends beyond the stencil to protect it from too much spray. Holding this paper about one inch above the surface of the card when you spray will create a softer-edged design and will keep the areas you are masking from getting too much color sprayed on them. Then move the stencil to another position and spray using a second color of spray, this time I used a very light misting of the Amaretto colored Memories Mists and then a heavier loading of the metallic color Bright Gold. The spray on the paper is dry immediately but there is now a fine mist of spray on the stencil and you can take a stencil brush and very softly move the color by rouging this leftover ink into the stencil holes for a beautiful stenciled image, while it is still in place. I used this on the large corner swirl stencil (LJ896), the small bird (LS94) and for the finishing touch I stenciled yellow ochre and brown pigment ink off the edge of the deckle edged plate (LJ880) to create the three deckle strips on the right side of the card for the added collage effect.

I have an instruction sheet all about collage techniques using the Memories Mists Sprays, just email me at lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com if you would like me to send you a copy.

If you are inspired this week, play along with us and do something with Terrece's sketch. We love to see your projects.

Thursday's Dream Schemes/Free Challenge Today!

This posting is for our Thursday's dream schemes and it is a free challenge. I would like to challenge you to send one of your cards that you make and send it to someone you know who is in need of a lift. Maybe someone elderly who is stuck inside because of this horrendous winter or maybe someone who has lost their job or maybe even someone suffering from depression or illness. I have been challenging myself this year to do this kind of thing more. I do love creating, but I am learning that I enjoy it even more when I share it. Design team member Deborah March spends some of her time regularly at a nursing home helping the residents make greeting cards. Just a donation of cards for the residents to send to people would be appreciated...the elderly living on a fixed income rarely have extra dollars for such things.

The birdhouse stencil (LM148) was done with the double glitter technique and very pale glitters, then the detail work was stenciled with pigment inks. The frame around the window was stenciled with pigment ink and the happy birthday stencil (LM285) was pasted in a pale blue paste mixture I had used to create something else. You can mix your own colors...I believe I used a couple tablespoons of pearlescent embossing paste (DPP) and mixed a small 1/4 teaspoon of the Metallic F/X Navajo Sky (F/X17) into it. Then while it was still wet I sprinkled a turquoise ultrafine glitter on top of it. When it was dry I took the tip of a craft knife and scratched just a bit of the glitter off to expose the light blue paste that was under it.

If you would like the instructions for the double glitter technique that has all the details and tips email me at: lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com

Welcome to the Virtual Valentine's Day Blog Hop...

So how do you win this package of blog candy from Dreamweaver Stencils? Hop from blog to blog by following the list of our Dream Team members at the bottom of this posting. As you go through the list be sure to leave some Valentine "love" ...this will be in the form of your wonderful comments on the design team's creations. (If you would like to see a card made with the two stencils you could win see the card from yesterday.) There are more than 19 companies involved and they are giving away some awesome Valentine blog candy. Taylor Usry's Blog is a place to find out all about these giving companies. So if you want to know more, or if you lose your way, or you want to continue on with a hop to another company's design team Taylor is the master mind behind this Virtual hop. The more blogs you visit and the more comments you leave, the more chances you have to win. These opportunities will continue through Thursday at 6:00 PM. Taylor will randomly choose one winner for the above gift packet from Dreamweaver Stencils.

Also if you "become a new follower" on my blog (or even a new follower on any of my Dream Team's blogs) and leave a comment that you have done so, you are eligible to win a special new stencil design. We will randomly choose three winners.

The metal Valentine that I am posting today was created by Magdalena Muldoon of Mercart, and she has used the following stencils: Heart whimsy (LL599), the Dogwood background (LG628), swirls (LJ863) and love (LM213). She has dry embossed the first three designs on navy blue aluminum and then sanded the embossed image with a fine grit manicure sanding block. Then she embossed the heart portions of the design a bit more...to make them pop. (It is amazing how much the metal will emboss.) She has a piece of suede that she positions under her work to make this happen while she hand embosses the metal. I finished the creation by paste-embossing the small vertical love stencil in metallic silver embossing paste (DSP) on silver card stock.

Now, take your time the next few days and enjoy the Hop! Remember you have until 6:00 PM Thursday evening to leave some comments. After you leave here you will go on to Terrece Sidoway's blog, but here is the list of the designers on our Dream Team who are playing along this week just in case you want to become a follower on their blogs:

Kim Parkinson

Kristi Van Doren

Laura Drahozal

Liz Martin

Louise Healy

Pam Hornschu

Terrece Sidoway

Wendy Jordan

Remember if you get lost or are wondering where to go next you can always go back to Taylor Usry's blog to find the list of other blogs to visit and connect to the companies who are offering blog candy. Here is a list of the companies and some of the fun things you could win:

- StampInsanity - with a set of choice for one winner

- Meljens designs - 4 digis to one winner

- Pixie Dust Studio - 2 digis to one winner

- Lizzie Anne Designs - $10 gift certificate (from me)

- Christian Paper Crafts - 1 year general membership

- Paper Pretties - 3 total winners: 1 person will receive Timeless Love stamp set; 2 people will receive 5 digis of their choice from the store

- Karber Digital Images - 2 digis to one winner

- Di's Digi Downloads - 5 digi images to one winner

- The Scrappychick Boutique - 2 6x6 Cosmo Cricket paper pads to one winner

- Stampendous - 4 cling rubber stamps from new release to 1 winner

- Pink Cat Studio - 5 digis of winner's choice to one winner

- Amber Ink - $10 gift certificate (and more if people use an Amber Ink product - see deets on their blog)

- Simply Betty Stamps - 3 digis of the winner's choice

- Mark's Finest Papers - set of their choosing to the winner

- Dreamweaver's Stencils - a couple stencils, pearlescent embossing paste and a palette knife

- Chi Chi Memories - Meaning of Love Digi Stamp Set to one winner (new addition)

- Little Potato House - $20 gift certificate (new addition)

- Kenny K digis: 4 digis to one winner (AND: 2 digis to anyone who uses a Kenny K image for their hop card) (new addition)

- Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps: winners choice of 2 images