happy HallowThanksMas/October's Challenge+WINNERS

If you are here to view 31 Days of Halloween scroll down to the next post for Day #2

Can you tell that sometimes Dream Team's "Fearless Leader", Pam Hornschu, has a hard time deciding on monthly challenges? Since the team will be taking turns all month with the Smeared and Smudged 31 Days of Halloween, and we are doing a Christmas collaboration with Stampendous and Core'dinations the 13th - 17th, the confusion should be understandable. Therefore...happy HallowThanksMas! As usual, we'd love for you to play along with the challenge and link your creations to the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog. Just in case you are wondering...NO, YOU DO NOT NEED TO POST SOMETHING WITH ALL THREE HOLIDAYS ON IT! However, you get bonus points for actually using Dreamweaver stencils and product on your creations! And bonus points might actually earn you an extra stencil as our monthly winner...just sayin'! (Really, what will happen is a separate drawing for anyone using a stencil in their creation....this will reward the people using stencils, after all it's only fair to tip the odds in favor of stencil usage since we are a stencil company. We will also have a general random drawing for greeting card enthusiasts so if you've created using  a stencil it will automatically be entered in that drawing as well.)

Because the team is also joining Smeared and Smudged 31 Days of Halloween we will be having a daily Halloween posting here on the blog and each day a comment winner will win a stencil of our choosing....AND there are  some other really great prizes as well, check out Smeared and Smudged for all the details. All of the participants are listed on our sidebar.

Scroll to the bottom of this post to see if you have won in September's Holiday Challenge. There are two random winner's for the stencil of your choice. PLUS...yes, this last week I ran a commenter's special drawing to see who was paying attention and actually interacted via comments....I think this winner will be surprised.

Dreamweaver now has 8 embossing folders. Here's a unique way to use them.

1. Place a navy colored piece of metal in the middle of the Peace on Earth folder (FG663).

2. Place the folder with the metal sandwiched onto the thick white plate of the embossing machine and then the two acrylic plates on top. If you are using the Cuttlebug it would be two acrylic "B" plates. Now run this stack through the machine. (If you are using the Big Shot don't use the tabs or shims unless your stack is really loose.)

3. Use a really fine sandpaper or manicure sanding block to sand the navy blue color off of the embossed design.

4. A soft swiffer dust cloth or a baby wipe is used to get rid of the excess sanded color from the surface.

5. I used our Color Solution Alcohol inks..."Pine Bough" with a detail cotton swab to add color to the trees. The Color Solution's nozzle is designed so the ink comes out one drop at a time, but if you want a steady flow puncture the tip with a sharp stick pin.

6. WE HAVE A NEW  MINI SPATULA!!! This new tool (WPT)has a sharp piercing tip on one end, but the other end is a small angled spatula. I mostly use it for doing the double glitter technique as a tiny scoop to manipulate glitter, but today I used it to place small amounts of the Glossy White Embossing paste (DGWP) on and under the trees. Perfect size for this type of detail work!

7. While the embossing paste is still wet sprinkle it with crystal glitter. 













Here at Dreamweaver Central, Rebekka Behunin has been busy creating these cards for you to see in your local card making store. Drop in to see the rest of the embossing folders that are available at your favorite stores and the other samples on our sample boards too. If you don't have a store near you contact us for an online store to help you with your needs.

Be sure to see what our design team is doing with the happy HallowThanksMas challenge this month. Leave some wonderful comments to encourage them with their October creations. And remember to add your creation below to the inlinkz tool:

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

Now here are our two random winners for the September Challenge:

*Christmas and the Holidays*

#16 Ionabunny

and

#68 Mimi

If you don't know the drill, you just need to choose a stencil from www.stencilwithstyle.com and email me, lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com your favorite with your snail mail addy.

The PLUS drawing is for those of you who read my post and left a comment about which zentangle pattern you would like to see done on the leaf designs...I was pretty easy and put everyone's name in the hat who made a comment about the post. And the surprise is that the winner was also a winner for this month's challenge...yep, Ionabunny was a winner in both random drawings! So Iona (GAIL) needs to choose another stencil and add that to the email you send me. Amazing how that random thingy works. Congrats ms. bunny! Thank  you everyone for your comments it was fun to share with Wayne and think about the possibilities that everyone came up with.

An InLinkz Link-up

31 Days of Halloween with Smeared and Smudged-Day Two

 
The Dream Team are dipping their fingers into all things spooky, creepy, and scary, as we play along with the Smeared and Smudged 31 Days of Halloween. The team will be taking turns to fill the quota of 31 days on the Dream It Up! blog, and posting on their own blogs as well. Be sure to leave them lots of love as this is truly a challenge for many of them! If you want to see the regular Dreamweaver weekly post just click on the HOME to find our monthly challenge going on.

Here is today's post from Jamie Martin:

1.  Stencil LJ816 Spider web on decorative paper with Lightning Black Brilliance ink.

2.  Paste emboss the LS63 Dangling spider on top of the web using DGKP Dreamweaver Stencils Glossy Black Embossing Paste, remove the stencil and sprinkle with Black Micro Glitter from Stampendous.  Set aside to dry.

3.  Sprinkle the edges of a black card with Aged Copper Embossing Enamel and heat from underneath so it doesn't blow off.

4.  Wrap ribbon from May Arts around the edge of the webbed paper and glue to the black card.

5.  Die cut a 3 and 1 from glitter paper, using the new DD005 Dual Alphabet Dies.  Glue to the ribbon.

6.  Stamp sentiment from Tricky Words from Stampendous on white paper with black ink, sponge edges with orange and cut into a tag shape.  Tie with ribbon and pop up.

7.  Apply Zip Dry Glue to the bottom edge of the web paper and in the upper corner.  Sprinkle with Spoonful of Midnight.

The Smeared and Smudged site is offering prizes each day of the month by a long list of sponsors...Dreamweaver being one of them, but we are also offering one stencil (our choice) to one lucky commenter on the Dream It Up! blog each day of the month! So, leave your comment below before heading over the Smeared and Smudged blog to view all of the other creepiness!

31 Days of Halloween with Smeared and Smudged-Day One

 
The Dream Team are dipping their fingers into all things spooky, creepy, and scary, as we play along with the Smeared and Smudged 31 Days of Halloween. The team will be taking turns to fill the quota of 31 days on the Dream It Up! blog, and posting on their own blogs as well. Be sure to leave them lots of love as this is truly a challenge for many of them! Here is today's post from Alison (who frankly, got us all into this craziness!).

Alison used the Jack O Lanterns stencil for the focus of her card. She applied glossy black embossing paste to the stencil once it was taped down, and added glitter while the paste was still wet.

Alison had just the right paper (from Martha Stewart) for her background, with a cool chevron stripe paper scrap from DCWV, She decided that she needed a sentiment, and pulled one from her Inkadinkado collection. It reads, "Smile you trickster." Perfect for these Jacks!

The carsdtock that has the sentiment was just plain white, and frankly, too boring for Alison, so she decided to use one of our newest stencils, the Chevron Background (LX 7026). This is one of our largest stencils, so she really used only a tiny piece around her sentiment, but it was just what the doctor ordered.

The Smeared and Smudged site is offering prizes each day of the month by a long list of sponsors...Dreamweaver being one of them, but we are also offering one stencil (our choice) to one lucky commenter on the Dream It Up! blog each day of the month! So, leave your comment below before heading over the Smeared and Smudged blog to view all of the other creepiness! The full list of the Wicked Bloggers is over on in our side bar. 

Christmas and the Holidays Challenge/This week...."the holidays"

The center leaf is first paste-embossed using the metallic gold embossing paste...read on to know more.

This month we are showcasing some of our new holiday stencils and dies. Some of you were wondering what our theme is and we are excited to have you play along. The challenge is open to interpretation for a Holiday extravaganza. Our new designs include Christmas and Fall holidays. Just want to let you in on a bit of our blog history and how we work our challenges....when we first started our blog we encouraged people to design with our stencils. But we discovered that a lot of people who did cardmaking and crafting didn't have stencils...so we changed up our requirements for the challenges to general cardmaking including using stamps. However things are achangin' and many people are stencil savvy. So next month we will be doing something to include both stencils and stamps.... also every once in awhile I have something different on my blog to see if you are paying attention and I have a random drawing for those who are leaving comments. Today I have something for the Zentangle artists out there. For those of you that are regulars you know that Wayne and I are a team when it comes to his Zentangle work on my blog. I create and render the card creation and Wayne does the sten-tangleation. This week if you are a zentangle enthusiast leave a comment and tell me what zentangle pattern you might like to use on these leaves. A single commenter will be randomly chosen for one of the new stencils of the leaf designs. Now here's how we did today's card...

I used the Color Solution Alcohol Inks to do the background first. It was done on digital cardstock that has a glossy type of finish. You can either squirt several alcohol ink colors and the thinner/cleaner onto your craft mat and then lay the paper on top and move it around or you can squirt the Color Solution Ink and thinner/cleaner on top of the paper and place a second piece onto that and smear the colors together. Both methods give some great results. Here is a sampling of the actual colors we have:

Next I traced the new oak leaf stencil (LL3043) onto the dried Color Solution inked card using an 01 size micron pen by Sakura, leaving a gap between those two outlined leaves. I then paste-embossed the maple leaf stencil (LL3044) using Dreamweaver Gold Embossing Paste (DGP) in the center of these outlined outer oak leaves and once this maple leaf was dry (about 30 minutes....I set mine on a warming pan to hasten the drying time to about 15 minutes), Wayne worked his magic by creating the tangleation with three different tangle patterns on the three leaves. The center tangle on the paste embossed gold leaf is a pattern called "betweed", the one on the left oak leaf is a pattern called "fassett" and the third main pattern on the right leaf is called "yincut". You can go to Linda Farmer's site, www.tanglepatterns.com to learn the step-by-step process of those three patterns. Wayne is amazing...he is an organized type of person and often chooses grid based patterns to work with. I love what he does and although I love the grid based patterns I am also very attracted to the organic patterns that he works with occasionally too. There is definitely something for everyone when it comes to this innovative art form. Wayne became a certified Zentangle instructor (CZT) and has encouraged me to do so as well. I am not quite there yet, but I do occasionally sit down and work with him, tangling away sometimes. In October we will be at the store Art 'n Soul in Lacey, Washington. The owners of that store do wonderful things with Zentangle and Wayne and I have been asked to demonstrate and teach for an annual Christmas event. Perhaps we will see some of you there.

Next Thursday on the blog: Happy Hallowthanksmas! 

And the team will also be doing 31 days of Halloween. 

We will announce this month's challenge winners on the first Thursday in October.

We choose two random winners from your challenge postings each month....one from the USA and one from another country (I've noticed we have a lot of UK challenge posts and many are using stencils, WOW! ....Great works of art!) Here is a picture from two UK winners that have won for their comments on the Woodware blog hop last month. Meet Diane and Julie! Thanks Diane for sending a picture. Looks like Julie is already creating for the next challenge. YAYA!

Now don't forget to visit the Dream it UP team this week to see what beauties they have created. We have been blessed this month to have guest designer Wendy Price joinng us. It is the highlight of my Thursdays seeing their creations. Please leave some comments for them because I think that is also one of the reasons they do this work for so little. We love to have the feedback.

Dream It Up!

Wendy Price Guest Designer

Lyn Bernatovich

Louise Healy

Alison Heikkila

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Hornschu

Gill Wilson

Kristi Parker Van Doren

An InLinkz Link-up

Christmas and the Holidays/Challenge for September

Where did the summer go? Kids are back in school, with all the insanity that goes with it, vacations are a not-so-distant memory, and it is once again time to get busy with the important things in life...crafting for the holidays! Yay! All of September the Dream Team will be featuring all the new goodies we have for the "Most wonderful time of the year", the fall and winter holiday season. New stencil designs, new dies, and...brand new, soon-to-be-released embossing folders featuring some of our top-selling designs, all to be found on-line through the Stencil with Style web-site, or your local papercrafting store.

Here's my holiday inspiration for this week:

Well as you can see I am using more of the background papers that I did last month using our Color Solution Alcohol Inks.  However today I am showing you one of the new stencils... the tall poinsettia stencil (LL3046).

The technique is Molten Magic, I love this technique because you can use any of the glossy embossing pastes and because it requires heating it with a heat gun it is dry almost immediately and ready to put into the mail. So this is another Christmas card creation that can be done very quickly. The only time consuming part is tying that crazy bow...never have been able to render a bow like I want it...LOL!

Here is Molten Magic step-by-step:

1. Paste-emboss the poinsettia (LL3046) with the Metallic Gold Embossing Paste.(DGP).

2. While the paste is still wet sprinkle the centers with "Goldfinch" Metallic F/X. Sprinkle the leaves with Forest and Kiwi Metallic F/X and the flower with Purple Satin and Kimono Red Metallic F/X.

3. Tap off the excess powder into a waste basket.

4. Heat with a hot heat gun. The light weight heat guns won't work you will need a higher powered heat gun. Only heat until it starts to bubble and move the gun immediately to an area that hasn't bubbled yet. Keep the gun moving so that it doesn't burn your paper.

5. Repeat the process on the BELIEVE stencil (LM224) using the same gold paste and then sprinkle it with Goldfinch Metallic F/X and heat it until it bubbles. Finer lined stencils like the believe stencil are going to heat up more quickly, be careful that you don't overheat it.

Please take the time to visit the dream team listed below and leave some love in the way of a comment or two. I have the best design team in the whole world. (No brag just fact). And then make a wonderful card and link your creation below.

Dream It Up!
Wendy Price (GD)

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

An InLinkz Link-up

Christmas and the Holidays Challenge/Week#2

Where did the summer go? Kids are back in school, with all the insanity that goes with it, vacations are a not-so-distant memory, and it is once again time to get busy with the important things in life...crafting for the holidays! Yay! All of September the Dream Team will be featuring all the new goodies we have for the "Most wonderful time of the year", the fall and winter holiday season. New stencil designs, new dies, and...brand new, soon-to-be-released embossing folders featuring some of our top-selling designs, all to be found on-line through the Stencil with Style web-site, or your local papercrafting store.

Here's my holiday inspiration for this week:

Because I am traveling this month, Rebekka B helped me with another design collaboration. Thanks Rebekka! She is making multiples of this one so the retail stores which carry our stencils and dies can have them to show customers....YOU. We did one of my favorite techniques on this one....Double Glitter. Plus, this time around we also used two of our new designs. We have had the stocking design as a stencil for a long time, but now we have it the same stocking as a die (DG692). This stocking comes nested with two other stockings and the largest is the one you see here and is a good size for a card. After doing the double glitter technique with the large dot stencil twice...the first time with red dots and a green background and the second time with green dots and a red background....the glittery decorative paper was die cut with the new stocking die on both papers. Use one paper for the top of the stocking and the other color for the bottom of the stocking.

The other new design is a chevron background stencil (LX7026) and it was paste-embossed onto black cardstock using the Glossy White Embossing Paste (DGWP) then it was set aside to dry. My tip for faster drying time of your paste-embossed pieces is to set the wet items onto a warming pan for food, or an old electric skillet or electric pancake griddle using the lowest heat setting on the appliance.

A final embellishment is the BELIEVE stencil (LM224) paste-embossed onto a black cardstock cut into a ribbon shape and while the paste is still wet it was sprinkled with opaque glitter. One advantage to using opaque glitter is  that you can use any color of embossing paste under the glitter. I happened to have Metallic Gold Embossing Paste (DGP) on hand so that paste was used. A simple 3/8" satin black ribbon added the final touch....elegant yet fun at the same time. 

Click HERE to see a video I did for a television show called Scrapbook Soup showing how to do the double glitter technique.

Now take time to visit the rest of the team, as well as our guest designer for this month, and see what wonderful holiday cards they've created this week. Don't forget to link your challenge creations for a chance to be one of two random winners for September.

Dream It Up!
Wendy Price (GD) 

Lyn Bernatovich

Louise Healy

Alison Heikkila

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Hornschu
Gill Wilson

Kristi Parker Van Doren

An InLinkz Link-up

Christmas and the Holidays/New Designs...New Challenge/+Winners

My creation for the first week of our September challenge uses one of our classic designs, the poinsettia (LG700) together with our new dual alphabet dies (DD005). I have been having so much fun with the alphabet and the caddie that holds it, that I couldn't resist sharing it with you. Scroll down to the bottom of the post to discover the winners for August as an Adjective. 

This card couldn't be more simple to do for the upcoming holidays. I cut black linen cardstock and stenciled the poinsettia with Versacraft White ink (by imagine crafts). You can either stipple or rouge the white colored ink using a large stencil brush (NHB 3/4"). It will give you very different results, but both beautiful. Then I squirted a daub of Brilliance from a bottle of re-inker (coral) onto my craft mat. Use the same large stencil brush and load the pink or coral color into it, you may need to rub it into a paper towel a few times to work the color around so that it is all over the tips of the bristles. Also off-load the wet ink just a bit into a dry paper towel. Next stipple this pinkish color onto the now white poinsettia. Doing this will give a speckled looking effect to the design....very similar to some of the recent hybridizations of the red and white poinsettias I have been seeing the past couple of years during the holidays.

Cut out the letters  "J-O-Y" with the dual alpha dies (DD005) and remove the inner alphas out of the rectangular alphabet shape of each letter, set them aside to use on some of your cards. Angle them randomly on the right side of the card. I like to put double sticky paper onto my cardstock before I run the dies through the machine, this way the letters automatically have sticky backing on them. Glue crystals or sequins or brads into the center of the flower. My favorite glue for crystals is Gem-Tac by Beacon Adhesives.

I was so amazed at how quickly this card went together and as it gets closer to the holidays that is something that is essential for making the greeting cards fun to do.

Click HERE to see my post in July...all about different ways to use your dual alphabet and caddie.

The two random winners for our "August as an Adjective" challenge are:

KAREN BALLENTINE
and
GLORIA SHIRR

So send me an email with your favorite stencil request and we will get that to you ASAP! lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com

Now be sure to visit the team that is posting this week ...listed belowl, along with our special Guest Designer for the month of September, Wendy Price. They work hard for Dreamweaver Stencils and we would love to have you leave them some love in the way of a comment or two.

Dream It Up!
Wendy Price (GD)

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

An InLinkz Link-up