Have You Met The StenDoodled Elephant From Marrakech?

I have to admit, as soon as I saw the new Elephant Parade stencil by Nathalie Kalbach I knew that I had to have it.  And that it had to be StenDoodled.  It is a perfect stencil for this technique due to the large open area in which to work!  

I have a feeling that this stencil is going to be a favorite for many people.  I did this project as a stand alone piece of "home decor" for a shelf.  But this can be done in a journal or canvas too!  Hope you guys like this project!

Step By Step:

1.  Place the Elephant Parade stencil on a 8.5" x 5.5" piece of heavyweight cover or cardstock, and trace with a permanent fine tip marker. 

2.  Place the Marrakech stencil on top of the traced elephant so that you can trace a row of the quadrefoil design in the center of the elephant. Then place the stencil down again so that the next row of Quadrefoils are about 2/16" apart from each other.  Trace until the whole elephant image has been filled in.

3.  On another piece of cardstock, trace the Quadrefoils 8-10 times with the permanent marker.

4.  Using stencils with smaller design elements in them, trace parts of the stencils within each of the Quadrefoils to give them each a different design. Then color them in with your favorite medium (I used a mixture of Tombows and Sharpie fine tip markers).

The stencils I used below are: Doodle It Dalhia, Net, Slices 6, Curvie Lattice 6, Circle Rays 6, Cornish Petals Small, Eye Lattice, Mini Checkers Small, Journal Texture No. 2. I also used the pattern section on the Elephant Parade.

Also color in the space between each of the Quadrefoils (the part that is kind of like tile grout).  Then cut out the elephant and each of the Quadrefoils and distress around the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and an applicator.  (Hint: Every time I cut something out of white paper, I distress around the edges with either Vintage Photo or Black Soot to hide the white core of the paper and so that the pieces will blend into the project better).

5.  Now to put together the Quadrefoils.  I placed the elephant down and played around with the different Quadrefoils until I got the look I wanted. Some will be glued down to the elephant and others will be 3D using pop dots.  Knowing that I was not going to use a quadrefoil on the trunk, tail section, or on the bottom of each leg, I went back and did some StenDoodles in these sections.

Then I glued the pieces down, turned the elephant over and trimmed the excess away. The final pieces were the 3 center pieces that I did 3D with pop dots.  I like how these 3 came out looking like a piece of fabric or blanket over the back of the elephant.  Then I applied some stickles in various areas to give it some bling and make it POP.

6.  While the elephant was drying, I took another piece of 8.5" x 5.5" piece of cardstock and distressed around the edges using Scattered Straw, Salty Ocean, and Shaded Lilac distress inks and an applicator.

  

7.  Once the elephant dried, I adhered it to the distressed cardstock with some pop dots.    

Hope you liked this piece and I hope you add this fantastic elephant to your stencil collection.

~Michael

Supply List:

Elephant Parade (L321) by Nathalie Kalbach for StencilGirl Products

Marrakech (L038) by Michelle Ward for StencilGirl Products

Various smaller StencilGirl stencils.  See No. 4, above for a list of what I used in the project.

Strathmore Premium 130lb White Cardstock 

Fine tip permanent marker (Copic, Sharpie, Micron)

Distress inks and an applicator

Pop Dots

Stickles in various colors