Guest Designer: Anna Friesen

Hellooooooo, everyone! Anna Friesen here. Am I ever excited to be here!! I am thrilled to be a guest designer for StencilGirl!! Thanks so much, team StencilGirl. ♥♥♥

Two projects to share here.

First one is in my unPlanner, and the second is a journal cover (an Artsydori) and coordinating notebooks. 

Project 1: unPlanner page shown on the left side of this layout.

For each month of the year in my unPlanner, I choose a color scheme, so for April it is pink, red, orange and yellow, 

I started with painting the whole background in yellow and white, using a large brush and creating texture with a pool noodle "slice". You know those styrofoam thingabobbies that float in the pool and you can squirt water from? Yes, those. ;) I got my 14 year old son, who-needed-a-job, to cut me a dozen of them for future use. You know, you gotta keep the boy busy!

See? A green pool noodle. Love the texure it creates!

After painting the background, I added some reinforcement stickers to the page for texture! #lovemesomecircles!

Next step was to stencil three circular shapes off the edges. I used 

Suzi Dennis' Circle Up 4x4 stencil from the March 2016 StencilClub, 

White gesso was my chosen medium.

Then...I did something very complicated...watch for it...watch for it...

I painted with my fingers. Various swipes of pink, red and white. Very easy.

Then I saw this yummy stencil near me and it was calling my name...the 

Lila Stencil by Lizzie Mayne. 

I sponged paint through stencil in a circle, roughly around the finger painted shapes with red paint.

Then, I did more finger painting, adding some dots to the reinforcement stickers and white gel pen doodles to finish it off.

Fun, right?

I'm all about adding ribbons and texture to my journal, so I ruffled up some yummy yellow satin ribbon to the left edge. Purtteeee!

Here's the other side:

To see more of my April unPlanner pages, see my blog. I am trying to update it regularly. 

Project 2: An Artsydori (which I learned to make in a JunqueArt class.) with matching notebooks.

For this fun project, I used a variety of FUN stencils.

Mary Beth Shaw's Mandala #2

Mary Beth Shaw's River Rock 

Traci Bautista's Tropical Floral

Mary Beth Shaw's Private Collection 15.4 October 2015 Club

Mary Beth Shaw's Private Collection 15.5 December 2015 Club 

These notebooks go inside the canvas journal cover that I painted.

 Here is my process:

I gessoed some drop cloth canvas first.

I cut a circle out of scrap paper. It's 2 3/4 inches in diameter. This will be a mask.

Next, I laid the
Mandala #2 stencil 
over the mask, and sponged paint through. I offset the stencil in various ways to change up the design.

As you can see on the pink one, you don't have to be an expert at this thing...ummm...I think my sponge was too loaded, or I pressed to hard...

Next, ahem...I finger painted around the circles with the same color, adding white for more dimension.

Next step was to do the inside cover. I used 

River Rock by Mary Beth Shaw. 

On another piece of canvas, I used a sponge with yellow paint (Same yellow as used on the cover.). I arranged the stencil in a way so that the majority of the busy center part of the stencil would land on my canvas.

For the pen loop (photo not shown), I took a small rectangular piece of canvas and applied dots using 

October 2015 Club Stencils by Mary Beth Shaw

I stenciled with three different colors.

The next step was to sew it all together. I used the techniques learned in 

Cindy Gilstrap's Artsydori class. 

That workshop has been so very helpful and rewarding for me! 

I messily sewed the circles of the cover in black thread. So fun for this added texture and contrasts to the whole look. :)

Added some trim of ruffled up ombre fabric. So fun. It makes me smile so.

And now for the notebooks! 

For the first book, I gessoed white cardstock, cut it to the right size for the cover, then added fun stenciling.

For the first notebook, I mainly used the
Tropical Floral stencil. 

I can rarely make anything without including circles, so when I spied the circle mask I made floating around my craft table from doing the cover, I had an idea. I cut out more swaths of circles around the main one, and I had a new mask!

See? :)

For some black, I doodled around the flower.

And there. My first notebook decorated.

I added the little squares and rectangles with 

Mary Beth Shaw's October 2015 Club Stencils.

I then rounded all the corners and sewed around the edges. Next came the inside pages. I folded 16 sheets of white card stock, tucked them inside, and created a sewn signature. 

For the pink diamond book, I used the grid stencil
Mary Beth Shaw's October 2015 club stencils.

I used Golden High Flow Acrylic paint in florescent pink, and pounced on the stencil with a sponge, deliberately pouncing in such a way that the edges of the sponge are seen, making it a "stamp". 

For book three: : I used several oranges through the stencil using

Mary Beth Shaw's December 2015 Collection 15.5.

Book four: also same stencil set as above, plus the grid and dots from the
Grid collection. 

Last book, for the title I used
Traci Bautista's Tropical Floral stencil
and
MaryBeth Shaw's Grid collection 
again.

I tell ya, there are endless ways to use these stencils!! So much value in each one! They're carefully thought through, and they fit any style!!

For this one, I also sewed around the title for an added touch.

And there! Fun, practical books you can put in your lovely cover!

Thanks so much for visiting. I had a wonderful time writing about this passion of mine. Please come visit my blog to enter a GIVEAWAY!!! and to see a few more Artsydori sets I've made. :)

www.artfulstories.blogspot.com

Instagram: @annawho

FB: https://www.facebook.com/artfulstories/