Thursday, April 25, 2013

Thursday's Dream Schemes/Clouds, Mists and Showers Challenge

Hey everyone! It's another Thursday to celebrate our monthly challenge of Clouds, Mists and Showers. And this Thursday I am sharing two of our new stencil designs. Mother's Day and Father's Day will be here before you know it and I think these two foxy foxes could be designed into cards for those holidays. I am kind of jumping the gun though because our retailers might not have these on their shelves quite yet, so give them another week before you insist you have to have them. lol!

You could win one of these new designs by joining our monthly challenge and becoming one of our random winners. So join us and throw your hat into the ring...or name into the hat. If you have a creation click HERE and link up for the challenge. If you don't have a blog just email me one of your creations at lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com. Many of you have done this and I love seeing what you are creating.

 Today I again used the Memories Mists to stencil a spray collage. This line of sprays is one of my favorites because if you are spraying onto non-glossy card stock it dries to the touch almost immediately. But the spray beads up on the stencil and stays wet for awhile so I can have a wet medium to stencil detail onto the edges of the design. If you want small droplets of spray for your work hold the bottle 18-24 inches above the card and spritz by pushing the atomizer down firmly. If you want large droplets, hold the bottle closer to the card stock and gently push the atomizer half way down. 

 First I sprayed the entire card with Mango Lemonade (MM01) to achieve a light yellow background. Next I placed the smaller Fox stencil (LM2016) into the lower right corner and sprayed with Iced Coffee (MM24) and then just a small amount of Amaretto (MM06). I used a small Dreamweaver Stencils Gold Handled stencil brush (GHB) and with the wet stencil still in place I stenciled by pulling the wet ink off the edges of the stencil and moved it onto the tips of his tail, ears, chests and feet. Then I removed the stencil and layered the Large Fox stencil (LL3030) onto the smaller stenciled fox and repeated the process with the same two spray colors.  I took a slightly larger brush (NHB 3/8") and stenciled off the edges of each of the stencils with a black pigment ink to frame the foxes. Even though the spray ink is dry to the touch immediately the moisture has absorbed into the card stock, so I let it dry just a bit before paste-embossing the YOU & ME stencil (LS1004) using the Dreamweaver Matte Black Embossing Paste (DMKP). The matte black usually dries more quickly than the glossy pastes, but considering the wet paper I place the stencil onto a warming pan or electric pancake griddle to dry it more quickly. A low setting is all that is needed to hasten the drying time. Once dry I mounted it onto black card stock and they are ready to be sent.

 I hope you'll have time to visit our design team's creations this week, just follow the list at the bottom of my blog. We have a special guest designer Alison Heikkila joining us each week in April. She always amazes me with how she thinks outside the box. Thanks so much, Alison, for consenting to play along with us this month! 



Posted by Lynell Harlow / Dreamweaver Stencils at 5:00 AM 6 comments

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Clouds, Showers and Mists: Thursday's Dream Challenge

LG642 leaves and LM210 friends
Our challenge this month is Clouds, Showers and Mists. Today I am using the Memories Mist sprays. I began by spraying the cardstock first with an allover misting of the Wheatgrass (MM05) and a very light mist of Strawberry Daiquiri (MM08). Next I used the letterpress technique with my Big Shot embossing machine and instead of spraying the cardstock I sprayed the leaves stencil (LG642) itself. This time I used a turquoise mist called Blue Martini (MM21). I then placed the inked stencil on a piece of scrap paper (which I had positioned on the thick white plate of my machine) inked side facing up. Then I followed the stacking method for letterpress through the machine. Cardstock on top of the inked stencil, next the thick rubber mat by Stamping Details (REM), and last add the two acrylic mats that come with the machine. Crank it through the embossing machine, but don't force it. You want this to go through with firm pressure. If it goes through easily you may need to add another piece of cardstock as a shim on top of the rubber mat.

Next I stenciled the leaves (LG642) in a random manner surrounding the embossed leaves using green pigment ink . Then I paste embossed the Friends stencil (LM210) using the matte yellow embossing paste (DMYP).

Showers Challenge card by Rose S.
I would also like to share a card today from Rose S. She too, created a background for her design, but she used alcohol inks. Her umbrella stencil (LG737) and showers of blessing sentiment (LG738) were done with the regular white matte embossing paste (DEP) and then she stenciled it with yellow pigment ink. Thanks Rose for joining our challenge! 

 So if you have your own blog or Flickr account and would like to join our challenge click HERE or scroll down to my first post of the month and add your design to our linking device at the bottom of the post. If you don't have your own blog but want to join our challenge, just send me a picture and I will happily post it here for you like I did Roses' cards. lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com You could be one of our random winners! We love to know that you are out there creating and this is a way we can say thanks for joining us in our creative endeavors.

 Please take a few minutes to enjoy our design team's creations. This month we have a special guest designer...Alison Heikkila! YAY! Thanks for joining us Alison.

Posted by Lynell Harlow / Dreamweaver Stencils at 1:00 AM 9 comments

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Rose is Answering the Challenge: Rain/Showers/Mists for the Month of April

This month we are dedicating our challenge to Rain/Drizzle/Showers/and Mists...literal or figuratively, whichever direction you are inspired to go. Today Rose S. took me at my word and emailed me this creation. Clever design ms. Rose! And for those of you who would like to play along ....remember if you don't have a blog you can email me your creations and I will post them for you, just like Rose's design. Email me at: lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com And if you do have a blog click HERE and link up with our linky tool to join this month's challenge. We will randomly choose a winner at the end of the month and if you win you can choose any stencil we sell.

 Here, in her own words, is how Rose created the card above. If you have any questions for her please leave them in the comments below:

"I used the rain stencil (LJ905) with white paste (DEP), sponged on blue ink and then 2 coats of embossing powder in clear. The cat is from the 3 cat stencil (LM266) on which I used black paste (DGKP) and black glitter and then cut out the kitty that I wanted. I also wanted to use the rain expressions stencil, but didn’t have room so I hand drew books and then printed the rain, rain.... phrase on them.  Rest of the details: plastic for the window, stickers and hand drawn frames for the pictures, glossy accents on the pics and the boots and flowersoft for the flowers and the clock was stamped on white shrink plastic. I had a great time doing this card and it actually came out the way I envisioned it. This does not always happen, lol."

 Be sure to take time to visit the other half of the design team listed below. Our team takes turns now, half one week and half the next! My side bar has the entire team, but those on the list below have created specifically this week. Be sure to leave them some love in the way of a comment or two...we thrive on this and sharing our creations with you. We also have a wonderful guest designer this week Alison Heikkila, thanks for joining us Alison...we know you are very busy and we feel fortunate that you are taking time for Dreamweaver this month!
Posted by Lynell Harlow / Dreamweaver Stencils at 1:00 AM 10 comments

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Thursday's Dream Schemes: A Tutorial on Picasso, a Stencil Shield Extraordinaire


This month's challenge is all about clouds, showers and mists! You can take that literally or go a lot of different directions with it. Can't wait to see what people come up with...it's fun to see the way this creative group of followers interpret the monthly challenges. So link your card below on our Dream it UP link ...we will be choosing a random winner and it could be YOU! If you don't have a blog you are more than welcome to email me your creation and I will post it for you. lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com

 Today I was given a challenge by Pam Hornschu, our fearless leader. She said that one of our facebook followers would like to know how to use the Picasso tool, which is a stencil shield (LL332). Stencilers have been using stencil shields in many different shapes and forms from the very onset of stenciling. I created the "picasso" shield when Karyn Busby and her sister Lori Bodnar traveled with me many years ago and they asked for a metal shield that would be long lasting for small stencils. Thank you ladies for the inspiration! So here is how I created my Clouds...Showers...Mists creation:
Sometimes I use "picasso" (LL332) to make clouds and when I do, I begin by taping out the holes so I don't stencil them onto my sky. I am very simply using removable tape (RMT). This tape happens to be my favorite, but painter's tape or drafting tape will work as well.





Load a large stencil brush (NHB 3/4") with blue pigment ink.



Offload the excess ink and work it out across a piece of scrap paper, so it is evenly loaded up inside the bristles as well as on the tips.


 Stencil the ink gently off the cloud edge of Picasso.
Reposition "picasso" and repeat over and over for a cloudy sky to your liking!



Now to use picasso as a shield...

I taped the palm tree stencil (LL379) onto the right side of the cloudy paper. And so that I don't have to use tape over and over as I work ...I use "picasso" to shield the green ink from getting onto the tree trunks as I stencil the palm fronds. This makes work go much more quickly! See how it is positioned onto the right side of the palms?




Please note the small red circle. If I were to try and stencil this small tip of the palm frond without a shield, my tree trunk may end up green. So I will take a small raindrop size hole from the shield and place it over this area and it will isolate the color.






Here is a picture of the small raindrop shaped hole in the stencil shield and it is now isolating the tip of that palm frond. You are now ready to stencil the green ink into that palm frond.










Later as I am stenciling brown ink into the tree trunk holes I place the shield on the right side of my work, thus covering the green frond that I just stenciled in the above step to avoid getting brown on the green this time around. This back and forth process becomes second nature as you move from one color to the next in the stenciling process.



On the opposite side of the shield from the rounded cloud area that I first showed you are some sharp tips. I am placing one of these tips at the base of the tree trunks and moving up the tree to create a palm bark. As you get better and better with the tool you will find the curves and holes are definitely the stenciler's friend.  I hope this tool will bring you as much creative satisfaction as it has me!





   

 To finish the card I stenciled the rain words stencil (LL738) using dark gray pigment ink.









I then paste-embossed the raindrops background stencil (LJ905) using the Dreamweaver Translucent Embossing Paste (DEPT). I taped out a portion of the raindrops so just about half of them showed up on the finished work. The paste spreader (LM2010) is especially wonderful for large background stencils like this...just one sweep across (maybe go back the opposite direction as well) and you are good to go.
Here is a picture of the raindrops all milky and white before they dry. Take a look at the finshed card at the top of this post to see how wonderfully clear they look when they're dry, also one last detail that I added to sharpen the image just a bit...I used a 005 Sakura Micron pen (30081) and outlined the palm tree stencil (LL379), this is also seen more clearly in the finished card above.

 Thank you for joining me in this tutorial on the stenciler's friend...picasso! This tool will do other things as well, if you want to know more about a stencil shield read my two books and view any of my DVDs. Find them HERE or at your local stamp stores.

 I am hoping you will have time to visit the new Dream Team's creations today, including our special guest designer, Alison Heikkila! Follow the list to see what they are creating for this month's challenge:


Posted by Lynell Harlow / Dreamweaver Stencils at 1:00 AM 17 comments
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