Stencil fun ........Weekend Workshop

Happy Tuesday ......

What a lovely day we have here .... the sun is shining and the sky is blue.  Spring is definitely on its way!

It was our monthly workshop at the weekend .... the first one in the new house, and we had fun playing with Stencils
You know how it is, we all have lots of pretty stencils in our craft stash but .... do we use them?  And the answer to that is usually .... not as much as we should!
I love stencils but they're not always the first thing I reach for .... that's usually rubber stamps.
I do have my favourite stencils however and they do get used time and time again ..... the brickwall, for me, is a must have

Honeycomb is another one ..... great for adding that little bit more interest to the background

And a pretty flourish that I love to layer ..... oooh!  the harlequin's not bad either

We did the usual with stencils .... ink straight through the design, nothing too difficult.  I'd used the brand new beautiful large Chrysanthemum from the Pure Florals range at Uniko Studio, as one of my samples, I love this

Another popular design was this pretty Daisy from Inkylicious .......

Simply inked with Distress inks and then I added a hidden sentiment inlaid into the front of the card

You know me ..... I like to decorate the insides of my cards.  Use stencils and a little less ink to make the inside look pretty too

Next up we used the stencils more like a stamp ..... applied ink directly onto the stencil, spritzed with water and then placed the stencil onto a piece of cardstock.

This gives a sort of watercoloured look to the design I think ....

Here's that pretty daisy again done this way ..... doesn't it look so different

Depending on how much ink you've applied to the stencil and what sort of cardstock you use, you may even get two or even three prints using this technique, without adding any more ink .... give it a try.

To  finish off we did a little layering using stencils ...... inks again and adding some stamps

This is fast becoming a new favourite stencil of mine ....... one of the floral designs from Tim Holtz ...... you may just see a little more of it on here you never know

A sentiment stamped directly over the top looks fab .....

And of course the stencil looks just as pretty on the inside ....

We also layered using texture paste ......

Another of Tim's floral designs, with white texture paste this time, and then black glitter sprinkled over the top whilst the paste is still wet

You can see in the background I've used a heart stencil along with the last technique ... inking the stencil, spritzing and then printing with the stencil.  This was done onto a piece of watercolour card and it looks like I added more water in some places, so the design isn't as sharp but I quite like this effect, it looks more random, if that makes sense.

A few tips that I find useful when using stencils ......

• Tape your card and your stencil in place whether you're using inks or pastes.  Always have at least one side taped, that way if you need to lift your stencil to see how the design is coming along, when you put it back down it will be in the correct place
• If there's any blank card showing, make sure to cover it, either with more tape or just copier paper.  You won't get ink where you don't want it then. 
• Use a very low tack stencil tape so that it doesn't damage your cardstock 
• and finally ...... if you're not using all of the design on the stencil use the stencil tape to cover up the bits that you don't want to get ink through .... no matter how careful you think you're going to be, ink gets everywhere!

Speaking of stencils, check out the Uniko Studio Blog tomorrow.  I'm doing my first DT post on there since joining the Stencil Design Team.

Hmmm ....... now what shall we do for next month's workshop?  

I need to get my thinking cap on as our little get together is a week early.  We've only gone and booked a little holiday, so I've had to change the date for the April one.

Hubby and I are off to Italy again ...... we've got 7 nights in Sorrento.  

We've never done any of the Amalfi coast so it'll be an adventure.  I'm so looking forward to it

It's going to be a busy few weeks before we go though!

Thanks for popping by ....... enjoy the rest of your day.

Cheerio until next time