GET "KRAFTY" WITH A NEW COLORWAY!

Hi. Pam here this week as Lynell is visiting family. So, I had the fun of creating two things with Wendy's suggested colorway of kraft, red, and ivory. I love this color combo, especially since I'm kind of on a kraft kick right now. For this card I used the newly released "Holiday Greetings" stencil. The ivory panel was run through my embossing machine with the stencil  (remember to spritz the back of the panel with rubbing alcohol for a deeper emboss). Then I replaced the stencil over the embossed areas and rouged gold ink from the Splendor Antique pad over the leaves. Now, see all the tiny red berries? Since I did NOT want to mask off every leaf with tape, I used the uber-perfect Picasso tool to rouge red just in the areas that I wanted. This tool looks odd, but has several areas that are perfect to focus on one area while masking off the others. I highly recommend it! I heat set the ink slightly before applying tiny drops of Copic White ink with the tip of a small stylus tool on the berries and snowy lines on the sentiment. Since my red ended up slightly brick colored, I chose this ribbon with more of a red-brown cast. Actually, this card ends up being quite simple to do, and is easily do-able in multiples for the holidays. Don't you want to know what the Dream Team has come up with for this colorway challenge? I know I do! The list is at right. When you are finished being inspired by them, be sure to link your own creation at the bottom of this post. We'd love to show off YOUR designs as well!

Thursday's Dream Schemes/Free Challenge Today!

This Japanese Maple, four seasons card, is done by Dream Team member, Pam Hornschu. The Japanese Maple stencil (LJ906) was paste-embossed with the regular matte "Dreamweaver Embossing Paste"(DEP) onto an ivory cardstock. Then once it was dry she cut the card into four equal pieces 1 1/4" x 4 1/2" long. She then stenciled one of the leaves  a red/orange Fall color with inks and totally cut out one of the leaves, then mounted it with foam tape. The Summer green was stenciled with a more intense green and the Spring motif was stenciled with a...well...Spring green. To add the shading she used markers and stroked in colors to add a shaded effect. At the bottom of each panel she used a wavy EK edger punch. Then she mounted them all onto a dark brown cardstock. She achieved Winter by not doing any leaves from the branch....as usual a beautiful clever creation Pam!

Follow the sidebar at the right to see what the rest of the design team has posted this week. And if you feel like playing along just add your name to Mr. Linky to link to your blog!

Thursday's Dream Schemes/Gearing up for Change

Dreamweaver is gearing up for change. We have 16 new designs that we released to the retail market a couple of weeks ago in Chicago. This sampler represents several of the new background designs. I was inspired by a card that design team member Louise Healy did recently. So I CASEd her creation. Take time to visit the design team's creations by following their names on the sidebar to the right of my post. Here is our sketch for today done by Deborah March (I think...if I am not correct someone please correct me in the comment section.)

To give this card a sharp edginess I cut a two and half inch round out of pewter. I am finding that I love to work with the pewter metal ...it is very soft and malleable. I ran the gear stencil (LJ911) through my die cutting machine with a thin rubber mat and two acrylic plates on top of that. Once through I left the stencil in place and used a paper stump to further emboss the back of the metal by rubbing the stump across the metal and pushing it into the stencil. This serves a dual purpose...not only does it push the metal out to round it a bit more but it also helps to release the metal from the stencil. I then removed the metal and tapped the entire embossed side with a Staz-on ink pad by Tsukineko. I let this ink dry for just a few seconds then took a soft rag made of an old t-shirt and gently rubbed off the excess black ink. I repeated the process on a small piece of metal which I had cut one inch square for the lower right gear. 

The background was stenciled in pigment ink colors on a piece of chipboard. The chipboard gives this steampunk creation a recycled appearance. The stencils used were the stripe stencil (LX7002), the houndstooth (LJ913), the small cathedral window (LJ909), and the optical art (LJ915). The gears were mounted with small pieces of foam mounting tape and then all was backed on a piece of glossy black cardstock.

I have alluded to change, so stay tuned for a different schedule in our blogging. Occasionally the team will all be designing with the exact same stencil and since one of the reasons we love to craft and blog is because we are technique junkies, so we will all be presenting the same technique at the same time. We will also be putting out a challenge for those of you who may want to join the design team. Keep tuned to our blogs and gear up for a wonderful Fall season of crafting with Dreamweaver Stencils. Hope you have fun creating this week. If you are interested in seeing what the team has done follow the sidebar at the right to visit their sites. If you decide to follow the challenge just use Mr. Linky below and we will enjoy having you play along. You can also email me a creation and I will post it here for you. My email is: lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com

Thursday's Dream Schemes

It was great fun releasing the new designs at CHA summer last week. They have been presented to your retailers and as we get our act together we will be shipping them out. But our full order won't be here until mid August. Just drop by to see if your favorite retailer has them in stock yet. And in the meantime just sit back and enjoy as the design team starts showing you what can be done with these designs.

This striking card was put together by Marj Marion, a teacher for Art 'N Soul in Olympia, WA. 

It is very easy to make. The "steampunk" or gears stencil (LJ 911) was paste embossed on a piece of silver metallic linen weave cardstock using the Dreamweaver Stencils Glossy Black Embossing Paste (DGKP). When it was dry it was then die cut into the shape you see and double mounted with another glossy black paper that was also die cut into the same shape. The "sprocket" title was then mounted and the metal sprockets were added as an embellishment.

Thanks Marj, for sending me this card and if anyone else wants to see their work posted here I would love to do it for you. You can email it to me at lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com or you can link your blog using Mr. Linky below. Follow the team this week as they share their creations. You can easily navigate to their blogs by clicking their names on the sidebar at the right.

Thursday's Dream Schemes/Colorway Challenge -Monochromatic

I love these colorway challenges and this week Louise Healy submitted the challenge. And I CASEd my design from one by Marj Marion that I posted last year. She did a beautiful variation of blues for a card that showcased the sea turtle stencil (LM179).


My take on monochromatic is blue as well...starting with the Glossy White Embossing Paste (DGWP) and then adding the Glossy Blue Embossing Paste (DGBP). A little Glossy Black Embossing Paste (DGKP) mixed into the blue moved the creation into a navy blue realm and the cardstock in the background is navy blue as well. 


I call this technique "freestyle pasting". The background was done by loading the palette knife and moving across the white cardstock three different "swipes" with a different color variation each time. Then while it was still wet I sprinkled thick glitter  from Art Institute Glitter that was somewhat chunky. The name of the glitter was called "Gala Blitz-Blue" and it has small shards of blue glass and silver beads as well as glitter. Then the bear stencil (LL593) was paste-embossed using the "sludge-paste" technique. You can read about this technique in more detail in my book, New Dimensions in Cardmaking Using Embossing Pastes with Metal Stencils (Book-3). I pull several different colors of pastes across the stencil at the same time and try not to mix it too much by swiping it too many times. If you mix it together too much you lose the definition of the colors, but can recapture the look by sculpting just a bit of one paste color back onto the design with the tip of the palette knife.  I also sprinkled silver micro beads onto him before I removed the stencil from the wet paste. It is important to sprinkle these beads on while the stencil is still in place or they will roll into the cracks and you will lose the definition of the design. You will notice that I regained some definition with his ear by drawing blue ink around it once the paste was dry.


Hope you have fun creating this week. If you are interested in seeing what the team has done follow the sidebar at the right to visit their sites. If you decide to follow the challenge just use Mr. Linky below and we will enjoy having you play along. You can also email me a creation and I will post it here for you. My email is: lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com

Thursday's Dream Schemes/Sketch #8

The sketch you are enjoying this Thursday was submitted by team leader Deborah March. And the beautiful creation you see here was rendered by Dream Team member Pam Hornschu. Instead of a greeting card this is a tablet cover. 

Inside is a small white tablet for jotting down a quick message. It is held in place with a black elastic band. Notice the small pencil that is attached by a loop of velvet paper at the bottom of the tablet. The cover was created by dry embossing the damask stencil (LJ907) through an embossing machine onto navy blue velvet paper. It was then wrapped around two pieces of thick chip board and connected with another piece of velvet paper to create the cover. Pam finished off the inside by adhering a plain piece of navy velvet paper with a strong glue, creating a loop for the pencil at the same time. 

On the outside she used a square piece of metallic silver cardstock and mounted another piece of velvet paper on which she had paste-embossed the damask stencil (LJ907) using the Dreamweaver Silver Embossing Paste (DSP). Because the velvet paper is textured the silver paste dries with a texture as well and almost looks molten. More and more I see the Dream Team creating items that can be used for a variety of purposes. In the next few weeks we will be changing things up just a bit to show you that the Dreamweaver Stencils can be used for anything from furniture decoration to collage wall creations. You can work on paper, wood or tiles. The sky is the limit when it comes to creating with stencils. 

Sketch #8 by team leader Deborah March

This week if you would like to create and play along with us use Mr. Linky below to link your creation. Remember you can also email me a card at lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com and I will put it on my blog. Follow the Dream Team this Thursday by using the sidebar at the right to see what they have been up to and view their interpretation of Deborah's sketch.

Thursday's Dream Schemes/Free Challenge Week

Once again it is free challenge week, which means you can create whatever your heart desires. There are so many wonderful techniques, but this week I am posting a technique from Kim Parkinson. She is a design team member from the Boston area and she sent this creation some time ago that was a totally new technique for me. Kim works quite a bit with metal and alcohol inks, but this time she did a variation on that theme and used alcohol inks on the Dreamweaver Glossy White Embossing Paste. I know that Summer has just arrived and many of us are not yet thinking Fall creations, but for those of you that like to get a head start on seasonal cards this is a perfect technique for Autumn. 

She started her creation by paste embossing the background tree stencil (LJ849) with the Glossy White Embossing Paste (DGWP) onto black cardstock. She removed the stencil and cleaned it while the paste dried (approx. 45 min...faster if you let it dry on a warm skillet or griddle), then repositioned the clean stencil onto the image. Next she squirted random droplets of green colored alcohol ink onto a felt applicator and added droplets of the blending solution onto these green droplets. The next step was to daub the applicator randomly onto the stencil leaving large amounts of white paste showing. This gave her the ability to then use a clean felt applicator loaded with red alcohol ink and blending solution on these open white areas. I think she may have used an orange color as well. You can certainly use several colors, but be sure not to daub the red and green on top of each other unless you are trying to make the color brown. Thanks Kim for sending me this beautiful Fall card which could be used for any occasion.

If you get inspired this week play along by linking to Mr. Linky below. And travel to the Dream Team's blog by clicking on any name on the sidebar at the right.