Typography with StencilGirl® and Art Joy of Sharing Collaboration

Hello and welcome. Thanks for the visit. Today we are talking about Typography.

For this month Shel worked on using kraft colored handled gift bags to create wall art. Of course, they can be used as gift bags as well...but they hang up on the wall so easily with just a thumbtack! 

She used a gel plate to make some monoprints onto thin papers with 'coffee and tea color' paint like Sienna and Umber. She used the stencils Alpha Jumble Large and Letter Mania for the prints. 

Next, she collaged and layered different gel prints into a square on the front of the bag for an interesting and graphic background. 

To create the focal image, Shel used the ordered alphabet half of the Alpha Jumble Large stencil to make words that related to coffee like Latte, Americano, Expresso. She cut out the paper into a coffee shape and glued it over the background. After some shading and highlights with some pens, the piece was done and ready to hang!

Today Peg is working on a journal made from the backside of napkins or serviettes. In this blog post, she is also sharing a stepped-out video tutorial that shows how the cover is created.

Peg says, "I peel off the plain paper and use the pretty prints for collage but do not wish to discard all of that tissue, so I needed a plan to use it up. A bit of topstitching and embellishment and my cover is complete. Then I simply stitch in a signature from stenciled watercolor papers."

Grab your friends for a Spring Break Stencil Party - Art Journal & Tunic Tutorials with Shel & Peg!

Hi and welcome. 

March is all about Spring Break or Stenciled Poetry so Shel and Peg have teamed up to create some fun projects. 

This month they have used Floral Mandala Lace L646, Finding Your Tribe L414 and the Love Collage Stencil L312 along with a club stencil from Nancy Curry's October 2018 set: Stay in Your Magic.


Club stencils are exclusive to club members and are not found listed in with other stencils on the StencilGirl Products web site. You may be interested in checking out the club. You can order prior monthly offerings once you have joined the club. There are no specific membership requirements because we know you will love the stencils. In fact, you are even rewarded for ongoing membership! 

So, let's take a look at the projects.

This month Peg did what many of us would do on spring break. She worked in her journal. Here are a few pictures of her pages.

Peg started off with Distress Oxide sprays through a stencil or two. Then she layered on some paint.

You can see the lovely water droplet texture that can be created with this medium below.

The mask from the Finding Your Tribe stencil was used to stamp the image on the page.

And yes, there is a video showing the step by step process. 

Wouldn't it be fun to take your journal with you and your tribe of friends on a spring break?

Shel was inspired to make a stenciled t-shirt when she found some white tunic style shirts on clearance for one dollar at a local store. She thought it would be fun to make some bright designs on the shirts combined with words as gifts for some friends she thinks of as ‘Sisters in Art’.

The Finding your Tribe stencil designed by Carolyn Dube, combined with the 6X6 stencil ‘Stay in Your Magic’ stencil from StencilClub in October 2018 designed by Nancy Curry were perfect to convey how Shel feels about her art friends!

The flowers and doodle designs from Kristie Taylor's Floral Mandala Lace stencil and Traci Bautista’s Love Collage stencil made a perfect colorful Spring background to put all the words on top of. 

Before stenciling the shirt, Shel washed and dried the shirt with no fabric softeners. Then she ironed some freezer paper onto the inside of the shirt, shiny side down, to protect from any bleed through while stenciling.

The first step was to block off areas of color using painters tape and sponge in light colors of Decoart brand ‘So Soft’ fabric paint. Then Shel used some Pixie Spray on the backs of the stencils to help prevent any of the paint bleeding under the stencils during application. Masking tape was used to help mask off some of the parts of the stencils while adding the words to the design.



Shel thinks this shirt is a fun and happy design and plans to make more!

Buy some stencils to make your own spring break projects!

Frame It or Fill It with Circular Shapes by Peg and Shel

Hi - Shel and I are so glad you stopped by today.

This post for me, Peg, is all about gel printing with distress oxide sprays.

I was so excited when I got my new distress oxide ink pads. Then lo and behold they came out with spray. Well, how convenient is that? A friend of mine had gifted me a lovely set and I needed to break them out and use them.

As many of you know, my other loves are stencils and the gel plate. I would say if you have never stenciled on a gel plate you are in for a real treat. I videoed the process so you can see the step by step.

Because these inks are opaque, they show well on dark surfaces.

I actually have two videos for this month because I was having so much fun just treating on the gel plate using the sprays and I want to show you that in detail if you’ve never done it before. So there are two videos.

I cut a circle frame from a page in the journal to create a window. I dressed the window with a vellum "curtain" to create a bit of mystery. then I used Gwen's stencil to add the words to the vellum.

Stencils for my two projects found at StencilGirl and include the following:

Boho Birds Stencil L628

Border Circles Stencil L003

Deconstructed Della Robbia Custer Mask & Stencil S294

I hope you enjoyed my take on the challenge this month.

Shel says the theme for January 2020 Creative Team Projects is ‘Frame it or Fill it with Circle Shapes’ and she played with a combination of both in a 12” X 12” mixed media canvas art.

Shel also wanted to create with a dark to light or light to dark tonal effect, so she used a black, white and grey palette. She started by painting her canvas from black through grey and into white in a diagonal format.

Then she used the Circles Circles Stencil L301 and made circles of white on the dark areas and black on the light areas.

She followed this up by adding some shapes by layer one stencil over another to fill in random circles with patterned circles. Shel used a combination of Circle 6 S008, Spoked Wheel Collage S709, and Random Circles L071 to do this.

She used the same stencils on two smaller canvas panels which she layered with dimensional tape on top of the 12-inch square canvas. This is the ‘framing’ portion... playing linear shapes against the circles.

Shel finished all the canvases with black, white and grey pen work in various line widths, creating marks by my own hand as well as helping to clean up areas where she says she may have stenciled a bit too messily.

 

Gift it or Grid it Challenge from Shel and Peg

Hello,

Peg & Shel with you today. We are so happy to share a few gift and wrapping ideas with you. This time of year we are always looking for an easy gift to take to out host/hostess and friends, so let us share with you some quick and easy ideas.

We are using L736 Leafy Doodle Border, S708 Leaf and Clover Prints and L422 Herbs stencils. StencilGirl® carries many leaves, flowers and nature stencils. Did you know you can shop by category? It is so convenient. 

Peg Robinson's Gifts, Tags, Bags, and a Dispenser

In the picture above and in my video, I'll show you how I created gift bags, a decorative journal to gift in a bag, a pleasing gift tag and a decorated soap or cream dispenser. I chose to work with Archival inks and Gina K Glitter paste. Isn't that green shimmer lovely?

The bags are inexpensive sandwich bags in a kraft brown paper and a wax paper much like glassine.

The tag can be used to adorn homemade flavored vinegar or oils recycling old wine bottles. You can purchase soap and lotion dispensers at the discount store and decorate them with glitter paste and stencils. 

Did I mention the decorated sandwich bags are great wrappers for gifting stencils to your crafty friends?

Shel's Wrapping Gifts Up!

For the November Gift It/Grid It theme I focused on up-cycling beautifully stenciled gift packaging using the three stencils. 

For the first one I used spray inks and the Leafy Doodle Border stencil to make my own gift wrapping paper our of craft paper that comes in ordered boxes as packaging. Iused the same stencil & spray to make a belly band and tag for the package.

The second project was created with a used box that some essential oils came in. As it was just plain craft colored box I stenciled it using some acrylic paints with the Leaf and Clover prints stencil. 

I like this stencil because you can use the designs on top of each other to add highlight or shadow with different colored paint. This box can be used again and again and doesn't have to be wrapped. 

I made a matching tag to tie on the ribbon.

For the final gift packaging project I used a paper sack from the grocery store produce area with oranges in it. I used a regular dye based ink pad and the Herbs Stencil to cover the bag in stenciled rosemary leaves. Then I used a piece of cardstock to create a topper for the bag to keep it closed. You can also use the stenciled topper as a tag to write a greeting or the to/from information. 

I hope you found my stenciled packaging upcycling ideas fun and useful and give them a try this gift giving season.

Well, we hope this helps you with your last-minute gifts this season. Thanks for checking us out and a big thanks from Shel and Peg at StencilGirlTalk. 

Enjoy the holidays.

Peg & Shel

Stencils used:

Leaf & Clover Prints 6" x6" Stencil by Jennifer Evans

Leafy Doodle Border 9" x 12" Stencil by Valerie Sjodin

Herbs Stencil 9" x 12" by Jessica Sporn

Dress It or Wear It Challenge with Shel and Peg

A big hello from Peg and Shel. Today we are excited to share how we each met the Dress It or Wear It Challenge from StencilGirl®️. There are so many ways this challenge could be interpreted and it is always fun to see what everyone does. 

Peg found a cute wire dress form at the secondhand shop. When she started thinking of ways to recycle it, she wanted it to serve a purpose in her studio. Now this wouldn’t have to be a dress form but the form did fit the challenge. Using some clothes pins from the dollar store, and some spray paints to transform them, the pins became the foundation for the skirt. 

Shel took a different approach to the collaborative challenge to ‘dress up’ decorative dress-forms.

She did not have a wire form like Peg’s so instead she made her own from materials you would

normally toss in the trash. A soap bottle, a paper tube and a tissue box.  She glued these together

and then added some paper clay to the front of the bottle to make it more lady like. Then covered the

whole construction in paper mache with tissue. The top layer of tissue is from a dress pattern which

seemed appropriate. 

Shel’s next step in making this dress form project fabulous was to create some custom fabrics with

stencils and fabric paints. Shel used the agreed upon stencils and some pre-washed cotton muslin

fabric. She plans to make this dress form decoration a fun seasonal project for each holiday, so she

chose colors of Decoart So Soft Fabric paints that reminded her of Halloween and then went crazy

with pattern and color!

This crazy fun stenciled fabric was then cut into pattern pieces and sewn together to ‘dress up’ the dress-form with a cute little witchy dress. Shel also created a pointy hat accessory with some
stenciled black cardstock paper to finish up the look. So cute!

To finish off the dress-form Peg used Liquitex spray paints applied to all the surfaces of the pins through stencils. This month, Shel and Peg had chosen to use Klimt Forest Stencil by Cathy Taylor (L358), ATC Mixup 1 Stencil by Mary Beth Shaw (L543), and Ancient Marks Stencil by Suzi Dennis (L435).

Earlier, Peg had prepared some fabric for this project while collaborating with Shel on a live printing session aired on their Art Joy of Sharing YouTube channel. Some of the fabric was torn and woven into the wire on the dress form. More stenciled fabric was glued to the bodice before applying sari ribbon and trim.

So now when Peg needs to clip up a wet piece of paper or fabric, she will know right where to find her pins.

Wouldn’t it be fun to make a batch of these decorative clothes pins for your friends? I think she may have plans to make some more. Thanks for stopping by and giving us love. Peg and Shel