Hello Crafty Peeps - a big thank you for stopping by.
Well, it's been a while - there's been a lot of life going on in the background these last few months and I have also been exploring some other styles of card making. But I am now back in Altenew mode and I'm happy to see you at the start of my AECP Level 3 journey.
If you have followed my blog or social media posts, it will come as no surprise that my first class has been 'Stunningly Styled Stencils', led by the very talented Jenny Colacicco and LauraJane Head. I love stencils and I have used them a lot in my AECP projects. They are an easy way to add interest to a card, or a quick way to add colour to a stamped image.
For this project I was inspired by lesson 5, 'Stencil Printing' - all the product details, etc., are listed below, as always. Unless otherwise stated, all products are from Altenew.
Card One
I wanted to start by using a stencil in the usual way and then seeing what print I could get from the left over ink. I started out with a piece of coloured/patterned paper - a beautiful clouded green paper from my stash, below. Using a coloured/patterned paper as a base gives a whole new look to the finished design. I used the Leaf Bed stencil and a combination of Green Opal and Green Onyx Crisp Dye Inks (from the Jewel Tones Crisp Dye Ink Set) to make a beautiful deep background paper.
Before wiping the ink off the stencil, I spritzed it with water and placed a piece of watercolour paper over it, pressing down well to pick up the wet ink. You can see the background on the left and the stencil print on the right.
I made the first card with the dark green background and the Build-A-Flower Honeysuckle Stamp and Die set, with the inks shown in the picture below.
I love these soft peachy tones against the dark background. I cut a few leaves from metallic gold card to add a little shine and mounted the flowers on some foam tape. I completed the card with a foiled sentiment from the Spellbinders Hot Foil Glimmer Place Everyday II set and some gold gems from Little Things from Lucy's Cards.
Card Two
This card is completely different and uses the stencil print I took at the end of creating the background for card one above.
I think the print turned out well and makes a beautiful and subtle background for this card. I used the CZ Design Swoopy Thank You die set for the sentiment and coloured a piece of card with Green Onyx ink to cut for the background. I finished with some dots of Cosmic Twinkles and Nuvo Crystals.
The sentiment is from the Sentiment Strips 2 set but the original sentiment was too long for where I wanted to place it on the card. I tried stamping it and cutting it up, but it looked odd as the spacing didn't work. So I stamped it in two parts by covering the part I didn't want to stamp with washi tape, inking up the remainder, removing the tape and then stamping the inked words - I did this twice to achieve the sentiment on the card.
Card Three
Of course, I couldn't stop there. I wanted to see what the result would be if I intentionally inked up a stencil to take a print so I used one layer of the Deco Diamonds stencil and inked it up with Hickory Smoke, Faded Jeans and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks, to create a sort of ombre effect, then laid over a piece of watercolour paper (for the thickness and softness of the paper, rather than its water-absorbing properties) and ran the whole thing through my Spellbinders Platinum. The end result was a dry embossed and printed background, perfect for a masculine card. What you can't see in the photograph, unfortunately, is the embossing - it really gives a lovely texture.
I used a sentiment from the Note for You stamp set and stamped it in dark blue, to coordinate with the background. I don't know where the die is from, I'm afraid - it has been in my stash for sooo many years.
The effect is quite watercolour-ish, because I used Distress Inks, which don't lie on the surface of the stencil as opaque colour.
Cards Four and Five
For the next example, I used Distress Oxide inks, and you will see how well they stick to the stencil and what a vibrant print they give.
I chose the Henna Square stencil and Wilted Violet, Salty Ocean, Mowed Lawn, Fossilised Amber, Carved Pumpkin and Picked Raspberry Distress Oxide inks. After inking up the stencil, directly with the ink pads, I placed a piece of Neenah 80lb paper over to pull the print. This time, I simply rubbed over the back of the paper to pick up the ink and it worked remarkably well:
As there was still plenty of ink left on the stencil after taking the first print, I spritzed with water and lifted another print, which was a beautiful, pale copy of the first.
And, just to make the most of all the ink I had used, I also spritzed the ink left on my mat and ink and blotted it up with a spare piece of watercolour paper, which I will keep to use in a future card.
The boldness of the initial print was stunning but I wasn't sure how best to use it. Then it came to me - much like the original stencil has cut away bits, why didn't I cut away some of the white space to emulate this? So that's what I did:
The gold 'birthday' is the Let's Have a Word: Birthday die from The Greetery and the subsentiment is from Sentiment Strips 2. I think cutting away some of the white and mounting it all on foam pads gives a whole new look to the finished print. A few gold gems finished it off.
The pale 'shadow print' needed something much softer, which is not my usual style at all. So, I used the Beauty Within stamp set and stamped this in Faded Jeans Distress Ink. I stamped it several times, so that I could use elements to cut out and mount on foam pads, to give a 3D effect. I took my water brush and used the ink in the image to pull some pale colour into various parts of the flowers. I then cut and mounted the extra flowers and was quite pleased with the gently coloured outcome:
I used the largest die from The Greetery's Nordic Frame die set to trim down the background panel and give some interest around the edge. The panel is mounted onto gold card (not much shine in the photograph, I'm afraid) and then onto a pretty pale pink card from my stash, to complement the pastel colours in the background print. I added just a few sparkles to finish.
Of course, I couldn't resist using the stencil in the traditional way, just to show you how it looks against the other examples:
Three very different results from one stencil - what a great technique!
I will definitely use this technique again. It is great for subtle backgrounds and allows you to actually use the negative of the stencil in a creative way.
Thank you for spending time here, Peeps, your support is much appreciated.
Until next time, keep crafting.
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