Monday, October 20, 2014

StencilGirl and Clearsnap Blog Hop


I was a rubber stamper many years ago, back in the late 90's I suppose. Somewhere along the way, I stopped using the stamps and all the supplies typically found in that 'department' of the craft stores. You know what I mean? I started using acrylic paints and just forgot about all my stamp inks.
Thus I was so pleased to receive all these terrific products from Clearsnap and have a chance to play with them along with StencilGirl stencils.
And check out these colors, are they yummy or what!??!! I decided to work in my journal. Before starting, I painted both pages with white gesso. 
My first step was to play with the inks. I decided to use Nathalie Kalbach's NEW Art Deco Wallpaper stencil from StencilGirl. I spritzed the Izink on the page, using a couple colors together. It is more of a viscous ink than the acrylic inks I normally use. Very cool though! I sprayed the ink with a little water and smushed it around, then placed the stencil on top and pressed it down against the paper. Using a baby wipe, I removed parts of the ink and when I pulled the stencil away, I had the amazing background shown above.
I was so in love with my first step it was hard for me to continue.  Gosh darn I loved it! But I knew it was really too strong for me to actually make a journal page on top. After removing the stencil, I kept using the baby wipe and blurred the edges of the stencil, just keep come loose definition here and there. The ink remains open long enough for you to keep working it for awhile and that is certainly nice. 
Next I grabbed Terri Stegmiller's stencil, Tossed Blossoms along with Traci Bautista's Tropical Floral Stencil. I used the ColorBox Chalk Paintbox and acrylic paint to build up the background with flowers. That stamp color on the far right (see my first pic) is just a stunning yellow, sort of ochre but brighter - I am thinking it might be Harvest? Oh my oh my am I ever in *love* with that color. And the others too, I might add. Really lovely colors and the chalk finish is really perfect for journal pages. 
I saw a package of canvas flower shapes (something I had picked up on sale somewhere) and they beckoned to be use. I use acrylic paint and the white Izink to 'finger paint' each flower and then dried them with a heatgun. Using the Cat's eye stamp pad from Clearsnap, I darkened the edges to add depth. In the photo below (which is the final spread) you can also see that I used paint pens on a few flowers.




 I was thrilled to receive these luscious products from Clearsnap and hope you enjoyed seeing how I used them.
















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