Collaged and Stenciled Houses with Lauren Bergold

Hello, it's Lauren again, and I'm thrilled to be a guest on the StencilGirl® Talk Blog. Today's project is the upcycling of three nested papier mache houses which my mom found while cleaning out her attic. Somehow I didn't take a "before" photo, but in their original state they had dark colonial colors and must have hailed from the late 1980's. 

I knew I wanted to cover the houses with collage paper, and adorn them with beautiful StencilGirl® Stencil designs. 

I chose Santiago by Nathalie Kalbach for the roofs; Crazy Quilts Bold and Beautiful by Andrew Borloz and Ornamental Petals Screen by Gwen Lafleur to scatter across the walls; as well as garden aspects in the form of Ferns 6 by Cecilia Swatton and Lemon Button Fern with Masks by Rae Missigman. I also added a couple of old favorites: Lizzie Mayne's Herring Bone Brick and Michelle Ward's Marrakech Mix add pattern to the eaves and dormers. 

Since the houses have many window and door spaces, and sharply angled dormers, it was much easier to do the collaging and stenciling on pre-cut paper panels, and apply them to the houses when finished; rather than working directly on the papier mache surface. I asked my trusty assistant (aka husband) to apply a fast coat of white spray paint, to neutralize the uncovered areas.

As it turns out, each of the houses had twenty (20!) planes/panels on which to work: four walls, one back roof, three front roof pieces, two sides, two dormers, four dormer roof pieces and four chimney sides, to be exact. I chose bright white text papers for the houses and papers with darker patinas for the roofs.

On the houses, I used Distress Inks and Oxide Inks, in neutral shades of brown and tan, applied with sponge daubers, and outlined or accented with a very fine tipped black Pitt Artist Pen. 

The plants are layered in few vivid shades of green. I let the leaves overlap each other, and some of the groupings go "around the corner" to another side of the house. 

On the roofs, that fabulous geometric Santiago stencil is rendered in a nice thick coat of white Liquitex Flexible Modeling Paste. The beautiful Ornamental Petal Screen has a lot of background and fine detail to it, and was a bit challenging to make a smooth transition with... until... I added in the square border as part of the design!

After all the panels were affixed (that phrase can be typed in seconds; but the activity took rather longer!) I added a few clusters of dimensional flowers and velvet leaves, just to bump up the texture factor, and I'm pleased with the results.           

I think I'm going to give these back to my mom... and see if she recognizes them?!

Lauren Bergold

loves to combine her StencilGirl® stencils

with collage elements!