Go stencil crazy!

Hello again.  Yes, its that time again already.  If you didn't enter last months Clarity challenge, I'm hoping maybe me or one of my talented teamies can inspire you to create a project using your Clarity stencils.  I'm looking forward to seeing loads of fabulous entries this month.

 

Here is my project...

 

First, I inked up the centre of the "Home is where the heart is" stencil with watering can archival, taped it into place onto an A5 canvas board and ran it through my embossing machine.

 

 

Using the stencil as a guide, I cut a paper mask of the cloud line, and spread grunge paste over the whole top section of the canvas.

 

 

In a similar way, I spread grunge paste over the lower section.  I tried sprinkling colour burst powders onto the grunge paste while it was still wet to represent flowers, but AAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!  Don't like that!

 

 

 Then, to make it even worse;  when I tried spritzing with water, I discovered that I'd got some higher up on the canvas.  It looked a right mess, but I decided to carry on.

 

 

 Then I used a mixture of distress inks and Paperartsy fresco finish paints to colour the clouds, and worked down the canvas with inks.  I tried to create the effect of a beautiful sunrise or sunset. 

OMG!!!!!!  That colour burst smudge is getting worse!

 

 

Then I used a mask to add clouds into the background.  

 

 

Now it was time to start thinking about what I could do to disguise that awful smudge:  foliage and flowers will do nicely.  I used Paperartsy paint through the olive wreath stencil, moving it as required. 

 

 

Next, I cut the house out of an old book page, inked the edges before sticking down, then added a few more leaves to ground it.

 

 

I replaced the home is where the heart is stencil, and pulled grunge paste through the words as shown.

 

 

I added ink to the words, and some charcoal to add depth and shadow.

 

 

Now for some flowers in the garden.  More grunge paste, this time through the flower stencil;  and those colour bursts are still coming through!

 

 

I sponged some white paint through the stencil onto some canvas, ready to colour and fussy cut.

 

 

I coloured the flowers with Spectrum Noir pencils.

 

 

As a final quirky touch, I added some keys for flower stems.

 

This was a project I really enjoyed making:  a journey where I took a few wrong turns because I didn't really know exactly where I was headed until I got there!  I hope you like it, and that maybe you feel inspired to try out a stencil project of your own.  Thanks for visiting;  hope to see you again soon.  Till next time.  Xxx