Thursday, June 26, 2014

Old New Borrowed Blue/ Last week of our June Challenge!




 It's the last week of our June challenge and it's been really fun seeing how everyone has interpreted the "old, new, borrowed, blue" challenge. Some of our team and other challengees thought "wedding", some used just one of those elements, others just joined the fun (which we love of course). Our winners are chosen randomly and last month we did two winners. This month we'll choose four...I will choose a winner randomly from the ones that did blue, one from old, new etc. Just for the fun of sharing with more of you! Can you tell...we love our customers.

The card I am showing you today is BORROWED from Elaine Benedict of North Carolina! She used to teach and rep for Dreamweaver Stencils in Chicago and now that she's retired she still teaches and shares some of her beautiful creations with me. This was such a lovely card that I decided to do a tutorial so that you'll be able to see how she accomplished her creation. Although it may not be exact...I think it's pretty close to how she explained it to me. Hopefully she will share in the comment section below with any help she has to help us understand her creative process better.


The glitter background was done on a double sided sticky paper (MPDS). First remove the release backing from one side of the sticky mounting paper and adhere this sticky- side to a piece of cardstock.


Next remove the other release paper to reveal the other side of the sticky paper and rub the microfine glitter (she used Art Glitter's color-Bluebell) into the remaining sticky paper. Tap off the excess and return it to the jar.
Use a palette knife (DPK) and smooth the Matte Black Embossing Paste (DMBP) across the taped stencil directly onto the now glittery blue paper. Be sure that all four sides of your stencil are taped with removable tape (RMT) to protect the edges from excess paste getting onto your cardstock.
Start the knife at a 45 degree angle and gently flatten the knife as you go across the design....at the end your knife is almost totally flat against the surface. Don't press too hard though or the paste will smoosh under the stencil blurring the image.

Make one extra pass across the stencil with the palette knife to remove the excess paste. Don't overdo this though...the more passes you make across the design the more likely it is to smoosh underneath the stencil and blur the image.


Remove three pieces of tape around the edges, leaving one last piece and using this as a hinge remove the stencil as if you are opening a hinged door. After removing the tape from the stencil wash the stencil with water and scrub it clean with a soft nail brush. Let the paste dry for at least twenty minutes before stenciling with color.


Stencil leaves (LG642) using a half inch stencil brush (NHB1/2") and pigment inks, Elaine said she used Brilliance inks which are beautiful pearlescent pigment inks by Tsukineko. I didn't have any of their greens but I used two or three different colors of green from the Splendor ink pads (Antique and Magic) also a pigment ink by Tsukineko. Use a soft rouging motion and add the leaf design in two or three areas around the nest stencil (LL3041). She stenciled directly onto the glitter too.


For a finishing touch, she shaded the tips of the leaves with a darker green using a 1/4" soft tipped Dreamweaver stencil brush. 

The nest stencil (LL3041) was repostioned and taped back onto the paste-embossed image of the nest. The large jumbo dauber was loaded with glue from the Palette Stamp and Stick Gluepad (GSP) and daubed through the stencil onto the paste-embossed image.



The three colors of Metallic F/X used were Wedgewood BLUE, Cocoa brown, and Ivy Green. Not sure of Elaine's technique, but I like to work out of the lids so I don't get too much onto my brush. Load the brush from the pot and tap it into the lid...a small amount goes a long way.

Stencil by rouging the color onto the now dry paste-embossed image. On the eggs don't stencil all the way up to the edge, leave some of the black showing, this is especially important with the blue color on the egss or when you take the stencil off the eggs will just blend into the blue color of glitter. You want these to POP and be your focal point on your card. Keep the stencil brush bristles flat against the surface. The picture shows the brush laying down. (did the photos for the tutorial myself so couldn't show holding the brush and take the picture too...LOL!) Anyway had a great time CASEing Elaine's card in this tutorial. So great of her to advise me on her methods and let me Borrow her card...thanks Elaine!
So ....I BORROWED the card, the background is BLUE glitter, the nest stencil is NEW (LL3041), the technique is OLDer! 

 You have a couple more days before June is over to join our challenge...so use our inlinkz below to join us!!! Don't forget to come back July 3 to see who the random winners are and also view our new challenge. 

Now be sure to join our "B" team listed below for more wonderful techniques and see how they interpret "old, new, borrowed, blue".

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Old, New, Borrowed, Blue for the month of June!

At Dreamweaver Stencils, we love to make our monthly challenges something for everyone, and not so strict that no one wants to play along. This month our challenge is, "Old, New, Borrowed, Blue", with the obvious thought being a wedding theme...but not necessarily. Add an old embellishment or picture. Use a new stencil design or technique. Borrow, or CASE (copy and say everything) another designers project, and obviously, blue...is blue. Where will YOUR creative process take you for this month? We'd love to see! And remember, linking your creations with the Inklinkz tool at the end of the team posts, provides you with the opportunity to win the stencil of your choice!

After a week of creating almost every day for the blog hop we just shared with Tsukineko ....I am being a bit lazy and my BORROWED part of this creation, is in fact the whole card! This beautiful black and BLUE card is done by Jane Gill from just south of OLD London town in the wonderful UK. Jane is known for her wonderful work with punched flowers and yet today she has also added a NEW touch or technique of adding embossed patterns to the metal vase stencil (LG626). This creation can actually be considered  a Zentangle process for metal, done by first embossing the vase itself with a large stylus or paper stump and then using different metal working tools to refine the pattern. This is done by working on the back of the metal and then returning to the front side and refining some of the work. Different tools shown below can be used: styluses are used to push the metal down into the soft leather surface to create patterns, a nail sanding block and a fiberglass brush (the one with the red handle) can both be used to remove the black color so the aluminum color shows through. Each step in the refining process is as individual as the creator. 
The four silver tools that you see below in this picture are actually referred to and sold as "a beginner set" ABK.
Jane used aluminum coated with black paint and began by dry embossing the ginger jar stencil (LG626) with a large paper stump then used her other metalwork tools to continue the refining process.


Several weeks ago our fearless leader, Pam Hornschu used colored aluminum and die cut and refined an entire 3-D project. That project is an inspiration to those of us who aren't sure what to refine next in our metal work. She showed how you can use the background stencils and die cuts to add texture to your work.

Jane finished off the card with a rubber stamped sentiment from her own stamp designs made for Woodware Craft Collection in the UK and a die cut trimmed edging and then silver and black ribbon. The centers of the flowers are robin's egg blue colored pearls added as an accent to emphasize the blue of the background color.

Now be sure to join our old, new, borrowed, blue challenge and use the inlinkz tool below to share with all of us. Take a few minutes and visit the blogs of our design team listed below and be sure to leave some TLC (tender loving comments) to boost their creative spirits!





Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Who who who won the Dreamweaver/Imagine Crafts Endless HOP......HERE's Who!

Another owl card...this time it is the small "OWL BUDDY" (LL3039) also in the new owl die set(DG741)


OUR THREE RANDOMLY CHOSEN WINNERS ARE:

ROBIN B.said on John Creighton Petersen's blog: "What a great Father's Day card."

KATIE said on Pam Hornschu's blog: "Beautiful canvas."

HEATHER T.said on Lynn Mercurio's blog: "That is just amazing."

So if you don't know the drill...please email me your snail mail address and we will ship you the wonderful Staz-on inks ...which are coming from Tsukineko and the stencils and dies from Dreamweaver Stencils. My email? lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com

And once again thank you to all who joined this endless hop and shared such lovely comments with our design teams. They work very hard before these events and it's been so nice to have your TLC (tender loving comments) to cheer them on!

Friday, June 13, 2014

Dreamweaver and Imagine Crafts: Endless Possibilities-Final Day!

 Welcome to our first ever collaboration week with Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko! We've shared all of our toys on both sides, so be prepared for Endless Possibilities! Three prize packages are available, each containing one set of each of these inks and stencils/dies. Just leave comments on each post of each day this week (June 9th - June 13th) for a chance to win! Winners will be announced on Tuesday, June 17th!
Imagine Crafts New StazOn Pads from Tsukineko
Stencils and Dies Prize Package
A scrapbook page using the bare tree die with the owl die and stencil.

I have been having such a great time using the Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko products this week...WOW! Today I am going to use the Versafine inks. They work absolutely wonderfully in a stencil brush. I would like to just give a word or two about good stencil brushes. When you are using a stencil brush with ink and stenciling onto a paper surface with a shading or rouging technique my suggestion is to use a soft tipped brush. There are a lot of brushes out there that are considered "stippling" brushes, which work fine against fabric or hard surfaces like wood or walls, but if you try to rouge with them against paper you get rough brush strokes. So if you want a smooth soft looking application use a soft tipped but firm bristled brush NOT a stippling brush.
A card for a friend who loves birdies.

Today Wayne (hubbie) and I collaborated with the design of this owl. Wayne is a certified Zentangle teacher (CZT) and two of his own patterns have been shown on Linda Farmer's site tanglepatterns.com. You can go to tanglepatterns.com and find step by step instructions for many many patterns. The main difference between doodling and the Zentangle philosophy is that you can teach someone how to tangle, but you have to be a natural when it comes to doodling. First Wayne placed the stencil onto white card stock and traced the design of the large owl stencil (LG751) using an 01 micron pen. Then he did all of the tangle work next. The beauty of using a stencil to tangle inside of.... is that the design of the stencil creates the "strings" or compartments in which to create your pattern or tangle. Here are the instructions for the two patterns that are his own...the one on the birds chest is called Logjam and the one on top of his head is called Viaduct.
This was used on the owl's head or cap
Logjam was used on the owl's chest.


The red lines indicate what you draw first...a very step-by-step process. You can go to tanglepatterns.com and learn other tangles to add. Suzanne McNeill has written a book using our stencils which is called Zentangle 6 , which has other patterns you'll want to add to your repertoire.

Ready to stencil, ink work is finished and the owl stencil is in place and versafine colors are decided...

After Wayne finished his tangle-ation of the owl I let it dry and then placed the stencil on top and added the color by stenciling with the wonderful Versafine colors of ink that you see here. I have to admit that toffee was one of my faves...but being a blue maniac the deep lagoon was right up there too. Now...what happened next is something that I always find challenging. Which is...what do I do next? The creative process for me often comes with putting the pieces together and I am sure most of you are like me ...in that there are a lot of pieces around here. But we have a new owl die set (DG751) and it contains a shape die that just cuts around the outside of this owl....you can see it in the upper right corner of this picture. So I decided to give it a try. Since the artwork was all done I didn't want anything to move so you can see my taped down die around the owl with the blade facing down. I have him sandwiched between the two acrylic plates that I use just for die cutting.

Because the artwork was completely finished on this guy I made sure to tape him down as he was going through the die cutting process.

I started this process thinking to make him into a scrapbook page as you see at the top. But I also photographed him as a finished card as you see below.

7 gypsies/canvas corp paper from the Conservatory collection.
I paste-embossed the sentiment stencil "fine feathered friends" (LM2009) using the Dreamweaver Matte Black Embossing Paste (DMBP). And also aged the edges of the background paper using the Versafine Toffee colored inkpad. Once the sentiment was dry I also added a vintage look to the gray paper that it was on using the same Versafine color.

Now take some time and see what the wonderful Tsukineko and Dream it UP team's have created today. Leave some TLC along the way...that stands for tender loving comments...for a chance to win the giftees listed above. Thank you for taking time to see what's new in the world of Imagine Crafts and Dreamweaver Stencils this week.


Thursday, June 12, 2014

Dreamweaver and Imagine Crafts: Endless Possibilities-Day Four

 Welcome to our first ever collaboration week with Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko! We've shared all of our toys on both sides, so be prepared for Endless Possibilities! Three prize packages are available, each containing one set of each of these inks and stencils/dies. Just leave comments on each post of each day this week (June 9th - June 13th) for a chance to win! Winners will be announced on Tuesday, June 17th!
Imagine Crafts New StazOn Pads from Tsukineko
Stencils and Dies Prize Package
Here's my creation for today... if you are here to see who the random winner is of "should we make the elephant stencil a die?"....scroll down to the very bottom of this post. Before I get going here is the wonderful line up of designers today. I have added this list to the bottom of my post as well.



New Stylized Dahlia Die (DG743)

There's so much to say today! We've been having such a great time with the Imagine Crafts blog hop that I almost forgot it's Thursday and the "Old, New, Borrowed, Blue- Challenge" is on some of your minds. Again I went CRAZY with some of these NEW products and it wasn't hard to showcase both our challenge and our blog hop.

First of all I BORROWED from Dream it UP team members Louise Healy and Pam Hornschu...they are always fun to "CASE" (which means copy and say everything). Using the idea of designing both the negative and positive portion of a die cut was a great idea they had and it was a blast to play with and as you will see...the Tsukineko Neon inkpads (NEW to me) are addictive too. Also NEW to me is our new stylized dahlia die (DG743). The two thank you sentiments (LG691) are on the same stencil and the stylized dahlia stencil (LG743) have both been around the block, so OLDer is on today's agenda and as you can tell by this first sample blue is also used (well turquoise is a variety of blue right?). So OLD, NEW, BORROWED AND BLUE!!! and of course welcome to our hop with the wonderful Imagine Crafts design team. Be sure to leave them some TLC in the way of some encouraging comments on what you enjoyed the most about their post for today!

Stylized Dahlia stencil (LG743) used with the (DG743) new die


Here is the second card which is "the positive" part of the cards I CASEd from Louise and Pam.

At this point I will do a tutorial so you can see how  this all came together. I know that many of you are like me and seeing things created can really clear up technique issues.

The very first thing that I did was the background ...this is where I had so much fun with the Neon inkpads from Imagine Crafts. I don't know how many of you remember the fabric called "seersucker" or "plissé", but this embossed plaid fabric of yesteryear was my inspiration for the background.


The NEW Neon pigment inkpads by Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko



The plaid stencil (LX7002) was first placed onto a piece of scrap paper and the Electric Green  Neon inkpad was tapped all over the striped design.













The thick white mat is placed onto the Big Shot with a piece of pink scrap paper added to keep things from getting inky. Then the inked stencil was added. VERY IMPORTANT...the stripes of the stencil need to go in the direction of the black stripes you see on the machine in the background. If not your stencil could get tweaked and ruined in the process. This is only a discovery I made after we tweaked about three stencils in a class I was teaching. I had place the stencil perpendicular to those lines instead of parallel and the roller twisted the stencil. (Experience can be an expensive teacher.)


This is the finished stack. Thick white plate with the tabs following through behind.  Pink scrap to keep things clean. The metal stencil with the stripes parallel with the black stripes on the machine. The Stamping Details thick rubber mat --you can buy it at stencilwithstyle.com. Finish off with two acrylic plates and run this stack through the machine.


Please take note...although these bowed acrylic plates are fine for die cutting they are really hard on your stencil if you are trying to emboss with them through your embossing machine....your stencil will become bowed just like the curved plate you see here.  My suggestion is to use a set of acrylic plates only for dies (they will end up like this one). Then get a fresh set and use them only with your stencils. You won't be sorry...it is worth every penny.

Clean off the LX7002 plaid making stencil by wiping it with a dry paper towel and prepare it with the blue Neon inkpad the same as you did with the green Neon. But remember to place the stencil on the scrap paper in the same direction at you did the first time, BUT this time turn the paper you have already run through so that it is perpendicular to the stencils stripes. Complete the stack as you did above and run it through the machine.
Your paper is now embossed and colored using the same process...I call this a form of letterpress. This is what makes it look like seersucker fabric which was often plaid and kind of puckery or embossed. 

I put some of the Dreamweaver Matte Black Embossing Paste onto the paste spreader, this makes it easier to paste on the uneven embossed surface of the plaid paper.
Tape out the edges of the stencil and paste-emboss the  surface of the embossed background paper. Use a gentle pressure so it doesn't squish under the stencil. 
Remove three sides of the tape and using the last piece of tape as a hinge remove the stencil. Set this paste-embossed image aside to dry while you are die-cutting your Dahlia pieces.
I am adding a double mounting sticky paper (MPDS) to the back of my pink floral paper, by removing one side of the release paper and putting the tacky side against the back you can then run it through the machine and remove the other release paper later when you want to add the now sticky pieces to the dry embossing paste.
The stack for die cutting is slightly different. The thick white plate and both tabs are used...in fact I add an additional piece of chipboard as a shim. Next use one of the acrylic plates, the floral paper face up, the Dahlia die (DG743) and top it off with your second acrylic plate. Now run this through the machine.

Remove the die and use our tiny tipped stylus (ETXSM) which great for poking out hard to remove die pieces. Then remove the second release paper from each piece and mount onto the dry Matte Black paste-embossed image.
I also used our NEW oval nesting dies to die cut some of the same floral paper for the vertical thank you (LG691) and paste-embossed it with the Dreamweaver Matte Black Embossing Paste (DMBP). Also added was just a bit of bling in the way of four crystals down the side of the flower. I added one other color of paper (yellow) for the blossoms for added interest.

As I said earlier this week I have kind of gone crazy creating with the NEW inks and materials sent by Tsukineko/Imagine Crafts...so below is another creation I did with the Neon inkpads and as you can tell I have plenty of plaid "seersucker" paper for future projects too. Be sure to link up below with inlinkz if you are here for this month's challenge and of course all the designers are waiting to find out what you think of the beauties they have created for you this week...can't wait to see what they've done as well!

Alison Heikkila
LG756 elephant and LX7014 Daisies

RANDOM WINNER of the Dream it UP comment-ary on whether or not you would buy a die of the elephant design is:

Janice K. who said, " A die would be great especially if you produced a smaller (baby elephant) size one as well".

Hi Janice, please email me your snail mail addy at lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com
and I will send you the following: read on....


It's your day LG704 stencil and LX7002 plaid maker stencil

We are sending you the hot pink and bright orange Neon inkpads from Imagine Crafts and the elephant stencil LG756. Thank you for reading through my blog carefully and contributing to the vote and comment-ary as to whether or not we should make this elephant into a die. We have decided to make a smaller stencil version of the elephant and a die of both sizes and we'll give it a try ....based on the comments of our customers.




Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Dreamweaver and Imagine Crafts: Endless Possibilities-Day Three

 Welcome to our first ever collaboration week with Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko! We've shared all of our toys on both sides, so be prepared for Endless Possibilities! Three prize packages are available, each containing one set of each of these inks and stencils/dies. Just leave comments on each post of each day this week (June 9th - June 13th) for a chance to win! Winners will be announced on Tuesday, June 17th!
Imagine Crafts New StazOn Pads from Tsukineko
Stencils and Dies Prize Package
Today I am taking a break and letting the designers have at it...be sure to leave them some encouragement by telling them what you like best....for a random drawing and an added gift just leave me a comment on whether or not you would purchase a die of the elephant. I had several helpful comments yesterday and am looking for a few more today...will reveal the random winner for that tomorrow....until then...
Imagine the possibilities of what everyone has created!


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