Stitch a Circle Stencil from StencilGirl

Maria here....

We had a free day here on the blog so I thought I'd show you something I finished recently. I used my Stitch a Circle stencil from StencilGirl to do some felt applique and beading.

I have seen AWESOME projects from Creative Team members Carolyn and Corrine with this stencil. HERE is one I also did with paint and the Gelli Plate on my blog.

When I designed this stencil I knew exactly what I had in mind for it--hence the name Stitch a Circle...BUT as you can see from the examples I showed you above it is SO much for than just for stitching!

How about a tutorial?
I started with a cheap burlap zippered bag that I bought at Hobby Lobby to stitch on.

I gathered my materials which included some 100% wool felt. I ironed  Steam and Seam to the back of the fabric. It is a double sided adhesive that will make one side like a sticky note until you iron it into place. PERFECT for small pieces like this. I flipped the stencil and traced the design onto the Steam and Seam.

**Note: stencil is blue because it was my sample of the stencil.

Next I cut out my pieces and laid them on the bag where I wanted them.



When I was happy, I ironed them into place.
I used a pen to mark all the little dots onto the bag through the stencil. 

This is where I did my beading.

My final step was to stitch around the pieces with a blanket stitch.

I have to tell you, I had so much fun making this project. Not just because it was my stencil and I saw my vision come to life but it was the PERFECT travel project. I have been traveling quite a bit lately and this was the best take along project. All my beads and thread fit right into the bag and I was ready to go!

If you get inspired with this project I would LOVE to see what you do!

See you next time!

Wishing you a 

 Happy Halloween!

and 

CONGRATULATIONS 

EDIE from North Carolina

you are the WINNER from the Blog Hop Featuring Cecilia Swatton!

StencilGirl Bird in the Window Art Journal Page

Hi Everyone! Linda Cain here.

I have the honor of sharing with you my take on a gorgeous stencil from the talented Pam Carriker.

This StencilGirl stencil is titled "Bird in Window" and I loved it at first sight.

The page is done in the large Dylusions Journal so the 9x12 stencil fit perfectly.

This is the finished piece and I love how it turned out.

I used Distress Inks and Blending Tools to add the bright colors of ink to the stencil using purples and blues, then reds and oranges.

The hand-written phrase is added around the window and more Distress Inks are used to add color to the corners and open areas of the page.

Bird in Window 9 Stencil L164  Artist Designer - Pam Carriker

This stencil just called my name.

I wanted the bird to be more precise, so I painted him in with acrylic paints and a brush.

When it was all dry I used a Black Glaze pen to go around all the edges and added my own drawings.

The heavy black pen created a more stained glass look.

This is a detail shot of the yellow and blue negative area that I colored in with pens.

The Glaze pen keeps the colors from blending out of the lines, but lets you blend the pen colors within their own area.

You can also see how the spritzed water drops added to the red/orange and purple/blue areas of Distress Inks show wonderful back-washes of lighter colors.

I hope you enjoyed this small look into the creative process using this stencil from Pam. I really loved the creative journey I had doing this page.

Thanks for stopping by.

 Your Friend in ART,

Linda

StencilGirl Blog Hop Featuring Cecilia Swatton

****GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED****
Welcome

 to the

 StencilGirl Blog Hop

 featuring....

 StencilGirl Artist 

Cecilia Swatton

Today, not only is Cecilia hopping with us, she did a tutorial for us here on StencilGirl Talk and ANOTHER tutorial for us on her personal blog (next on the list). 

How lucky are we??!!

**The Blog Hop order is under the tutorial.**

"Scraping" with Stencils

by Cecilia Swatton

What I call "scraping" is simply a wet version of making rubbings -- an old technique, originally done with crayon or similar dry media, for transferring textures and designs from their original surfaces, onto paper.

Supplies:

(1) sturdy but thin paper

In these pictured examples I have used deli paper, available at restaurant supply stores, but other options include tracing paper, sturdy art tissue (not the cheaper tissue used for giftwrap) and some of the thin Asian rice papers.

It's not necessary for the paper to be translucent, like my deli paper, but I prefer this because I want to eventually layer these papers onto backgrounds while allowing the backgrounds to remain somewhat visible.

(2) acrylic paints

I use both liquid and heavy-body acrylics; I also use acrylics mixed with matte or gloss medium -- sometimes using these media in gel form; other times, the liquid form.  I encourage experimentation.  Each blend yields slightly different results.

(3)  an old credit card, a palette knife, or a Wedge tool --

http://princetonbrush.com/catalyst-wedges-acrylic.html

(4) masking tape and scissors

(5) a protected work surface

I use masking tape to secure freezer paper (shiny side up) to my work surface. 

(6) stencils

For this demonstration, I have chosen my 9"X12" Mimosa and my 6"X6" stencils Grid, Marbles and Kaleid.

Method:

I tape the stencils to the protected work surface, making sure that they are lying flat against the surface, and well-secured with tape.

Over the stencils, I tape pieces of deli paper ... one layer of paper over each stencil.  I make sure the paper is flat and taut across the stencils; I secure the edges of the papers with masking tape.

I load the edge of the credit card with my first paint of choice.

Next, I apply firm pressure as I start at the top and drag the spreading tool down across the stencil, scraping on a layer of paint as I go.

 I sometimes stop after the first scrape, depending on the results.  If the first scrape doesn't satisfy me, I scrape again.  Having secured all edges of the stencils and papers, I can also scrape sideways, rather than top-to-bottom.

I often load two or three colors onto the scraping tool, getting a three-color image with my first scrape.

Other times, I load only one color onto the scraping tool, for the first scrape, but usually I move forward using additional colors, adding colors over one another or immediately side-by-side, with some overlap.  I do this while the paint is still wet.  However, another approach would be to allow the first scrapes to dry, before adding the next layers of wet paint.

Once the scraped papers are dry, they need to be carefully removed from the background surface -- then, the artist can turn them over to see which side she likes better.  Often, when several layers of color have been used in succession, it can happen that the "underside" is more appealing that the side where the paint was applied. 

These pictured examples show an abstract mixed-media collage of mine.  I have used the top sides of some of the scraped papers and the flip side of some other pieces of scraped paper. 

Once an artist has done both the screenprinting method posted on my blog -- http://heartworkbycecilia.blogspot.com -- and the scraping method described here, she will see that the two techniques both use stencils to create design; and, in both cases, the prints are made by firmly spreading a gel or liquid coloring media across a stencil, without actually touching paint to the stencil itself.

Now it is time to
HOP!

But....before you go.....

Cecilia is giving away these three of her stencil designs on her personal blog (next on the list).

and

StencilGirl Products will be giving this design of Cecilia's away!

Remember, ALL comments on all blog's are eligible to win both giveaway's!
The more times you comment, the more chances you have to WIN!

You will have until Sunday, October 27th @ 11:59PM Central Time to enter!

Good Luck!

*****GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED*****

Blog Hop Order

StencilGirl Talk YOU ARE HERE

Cecilia Swatton GO HERE NEXT

Linda Kittmer

Linda Cain

Carolyn Dube

Corrine Gilman

Judy Shea

Kirsten Reed

Jessica Sporn

StencilGirl Guest Designer Jodi Ohl

Hi Everyone!

My name is Jodi Ohl and I’m a mixed media artist, writer and

work shop instructor out of central North Carolina. I’m here today to feature

my friend Seth Apter’s newest StencilGirl stencil called Numbers

release with a project that I created that combined printmaking, collage

and mixed media techniques. 

  Seth’s stencils are great because each and every one has a variety of elements that

can be used together or on their own. In a sense, you actually get a variety of

stencils all in one.  One useful way to work on a project is to find a few areas that you want to work on and in essence, create your own surface design with those elements within Seth's stencils.

I used a variety of paints which I will feature in the

supplies, but do know that you can use whatever colors you are drawn to. 

Because I knew I was going to do a landscape composition of some sort, I went

with some earthy tones as well as some of my favorite bright colors such as

teal and green gold.   You’ll see in thevideo I also finished off the piece by enhancing the colors and the overalldesign using Silks Acrylics. I completed the project by adding an additional 3D element by  spreading on modeling crème

by Viva over a few stencil areas, repeating some of the patterns I created my

papers with. 

I was left with a lot of extra papers which I’m okay with

because they will surely be utilized for other journal or collage projects down

the road.

Please take a look at the video and enjoy creating a simple

mixed media collage that is fun,  quick

and easy.

"You Are Not Alone"

by Jodi Ohl

Be sure to visit my blog for more of my art, classes and weekly news:

Sweet Repeats

Maria here.....Thank you JODI!!!! 

Before you go....the winner in our StencilGirl/Xyron giveaway is.....

Lisa P!!!!!

Lisa I have sent you a email!

Congratulations and thank you to everyone that entered!

A Trip Down Memory Lane with Sue Pelletier's Loose Dresses Stencil

Hi Everyone! Linda Kittmer here today. 

A while back I was looking for something online when I stumbled across paper doll apps for use on smart phones and tablets. I couldn't believe it!  It got me thinking about all the fun I had as a kid, playing with my friends and our paper paper dolls. We spent hours with markers, paint, pencil crayons, paper and glue, and any number of other art supplies, designing and creating our own clothes for those wonderfully simple dolls.

I just can't see an app of a 'virtual' paper doll allowing for the same kind of creative play...and so, this mixed media fibre art piece, called Play Unplugged, began.

I started by finding some copyright free paper doll images and manipulating them in Photoshop to create my own unique doll...the body of one with another one's head, etc. She was then printed onto card stock and strengthened with a layer of Fast2Fuse to give her some extra body. I have some fabulous tissue paper with script on it, so I decided to cover her skin with text using matt medium and a palette knife to adhere it. I then carefully trimmed away the excess using small scissors.

While looking for paper doll images, I came across John Mayer's lyrics for his song "Paper Doll" so I decided to write them out on deli paper and those were added to my painted canvas background to add another layer of text.

I added some stamped images of Queen Anne's lace using rubber stamps and StazOn ink. This background was then layered with batting and extensively stitched using variegated thread and a series of lines running from side to side. I switched to black thread and thread sketched over the stamped images to make them stand out and give them more texture.







With the paper doll finished and the background ready, it was time to pull out Sue Pelletier's fabulous Loose Dress stencils.  I absolutely love these beautiful dresses!  I've used all three of the 6 inch stencils, but they're also available in 9" x 12" if you prefer working larger!

I used black acrylic paint and a make-up sponge to print Sue's design on some of my hand dyed cottons. Those were then roughly cut out and attached to some white canvas with fusible webbing. This allowed me to cut them out along the edges of the dress design, adding the white 'paper tabs' that traditional paper doll clothes have.

I arranged all of the dresses and the doll on the background and carefully free motion stitched around the outside edges using black thread. I left the white tabs loose so that they move freely and stick up off of the background.

The final step was to use a Micron pen to write a message all around the edges of the dresses and doll, which was then free motion stitched, again using black thread. This is some pretty fussy free motion stitching with such small text, but the added texture of the thread really makes the words pop.

The text reads:  Kids don't need paper doll apps for smart phones and tablets!  They need paper and paint and markers and glue.  Let them explore their own incredible imagination. Let them design.  Let them play unplugged!

The finished piece has been mounted on a pre-stretched canvas.

I hope I've inspired you to explore the use of StencilGirl stencils 

in your fibre art and mixed-media work.

Linda Kittmer