Make a Pocket Book out of Envelopes and the April 2026 Stencil Club Set

There is something quietly satisfying about a stack of envelopes—especially the kind you don’t quite remember saving. They surface in drawers and boxes, tucked between the practical and the sentimental, carrying with them a faint suggestion of intention. This project began, as many good ones do, with that kind of rediscovery: a small collection of envelopes made from thick, watercolor paper, too beautiful to discard and too intriguing to ignore.

Hello again—I’m Kim Hamburg, mixed media collage artist, and today I’m working with the April 2026 StencilClub stencil set, Ribbon Dance, designed by Jennifer Evans. In this project, I’ll be transforming a handful of envelopes into a small, sculptural book with exposed pockets—spaces ready to hold ephemera, tags, ATC cards, and whatever fragments of story you feel compelled to tuck inside.

Jennifer Evans’ designs feel particularly at home in this kind of work. She creates stencils that lean into abstraction—marks that resemble intuitive, almost instinctive gestures. They are wide, expressive, and open-ended, suggesting a structure without confining it. There’s a generosity in that approach: the stencil offers a starting point, but leaves plenty of room for the artist to respond, layer, and reinterpret.

And of course, when faced with envelopes and pockets, I had to make a pocket-book.

Supplies

• Envelopes (any size; I used five, but the number is entirely flexible)
• Acrylic paint (at least two colors)
• Paintbrush, brayer, or sponge
• Adhesive (I used PVA glue)
• April 2026 StencilClub Set - Ribbon Dance

Optional:

• Gelli plate
• Markers, pens, or other embellishing tools
• Additional collage materials or ephemera

The Process

I began by painting each envelope, front and back—thinking less about perfection and more about establishing a base layer of color and movement. Some envelopes were printed using a gelli plate, which gave them a soft, atmospheric variation. Others I painted directly, letting the brushmarks remain visible, like handwriting.

Once everything had dried, I returned with the stencil set and a second color. This is where the structure began to shift into something more expressive. One of my favorite moments in the process was layering all three stencil designs together on the gelli plate at the same time. The result was unexpected—a kind of visual overlap that felt almost chaotic, but in a way that suggested rhythm rather than disorder. Marks collided, repeated, dissolved. It created a beautifully abstract, slightly jumbled surface that I wouldn’t have arrived at if I had approached each stencil separately.

From there, the envelopes began to take on a new identity—not as individual objects, but as pages. Glued together along their edges, they formed a small book, each pocket left open and accessible. The structure invites interaction. It asks to be filled.

How to Assemble the Pocket-Book

Take two envelopes and place them with the flap side facing up. Tuck the flap of one envelope into the body of the other, so that one flap is secured inside while the other remains extended. That remaining flap becomes your connector—it slides into the next envelope, whose flap will then extend outward in turn.

Continue this rhythm—tucking one, leaving one—until you’ve linked together as many envelopes as you like. To finish, simply glue the final flap to the envelope it meets.

What makes this structure especially satisfying is its flexibility. Because nothing is glued along the interior spine, the book isn’t fixed in size. It can grow. You can continue adding envelopes, extending the piece over time—an expandable object that evolves alongside whatever you choose to place inside it.

Why This Works

There’s something compelling about using envelopes this way—their original purpose lingers, but shifts. Instead of containing a single message, they become containers for many small ones. A scrap of paper, a stamped tag, a handwritten note—each addition becomes part of a layered narrative.

And that’s really what this project is about: not just making something, but making space. Space for collecting, for holding, for returning to.

It’s a small book, yes—but also a quiet archive of whatever you choose to keep.

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You get lots of great benefits as a club member, including a coupon for 25% off all regular collection stencils, a project and PDF from the artist, and an additional project by me that is for members only. So don’t delay!

Get more information about Stencil Club here
Stencil Club

I would love to see your work. Please tag me on Instagram — check out my IG

https://www.instagram.com/gluepaperscissors_/?hl=en

Kim Hamburg on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/kimhamburgart

Artist Jennifer Evans on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdoBz3l_piQ

Lucy in the Sky Collaboration/Challenge

Hi all!  Tina Walker here with my latest collaboration challenge! I challenged artist to use the song lyrics of the 1967 song 'Lucy in the sky with diamonds', by the famous Beatles. I often am inspired both creativity and personally by song lyrics and will use the words as quotes on an art journal page or by the overall feeling of a song.  I think what initially drew me into to this particular song is the hidden, and broadly interpreted words.  They are psychedelic and wild, which I really love. 

Artist could create any type of project, art journal pages, assemblage, weavings, multi media, textiles, and more, just as long as they use the lyrics as inspiration, and (of course) show innovative ways to use StencilGirl® stencils.  You will LOVE what they created.  Let's get to it!

TRACY KRUEGER

"When i read the lyrics to the song, i knew I needed to incorporate as many of the pieces of the song as possible. I sketched up about 4 different versions of my project and had help from the family on final ideas. I love the final piece!" 

Now this is a acid trip assemblage piece, jammed full of fun little bits.  :)

Stencils Used:

Aztec Sun

Delicate Face

Wildflowers and Grasses 

LINDA WYATT

"My painting is about capturing the mood of the song Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. Of the many vivid images mentioned in the lyrics, I chose kaleidoscope eyes, sky, and diamonds. I painted a purple-haired hippie-type girl and gave her round stenciled shapes for eyes, hinting at both glasses and a kaleidoscope and giving her a dreamy feel. There is a subtle stenciled diamond in the background, and surrounding her head are tiny gold-embossed stenciled stars and words about reaching for the stars." 

She is quite beautiful and unique.  I can DEF see the inspiration.

Stencils Used:

Maltese Mix

Crown Chakra

Scribble X mask

KERRY MOLINA

"What a fun challenge!  Not only do I love trying to illustrate song lyrics, I love the Beatles and I love SG.  I challenged myself to use as many SG stencils as I could and not much else.  I used a Beatles album as my substrate.  Funky song, wonderful challenge!" 

STUNNING!  The composition on this is so so stunning!

Stencils Used:

Alchemy

Sketchy women with class

Coming and Going

ANN BARNES

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is such a nostalgic song, reminding me of carefree days. When I listened to the song it evoked images in my mind which I then transformed into art in my journal- a boat on a river, cellophane flowers of yellow and green towering over your head, and newspaper taxis to name a few." 

Ann always has so much attention to detail.  I can hear the lyrics now.

Stencils Used:

Botanical Wildflowers

Ancient Mariners Map 

HEATHER BALEY

"A recent interest in encaustic work inspired me to create this collage on a vintage book cover.  I knew that the Jeanne Oliver stencil would be a perfect focal point to top off layers if book pages, wax, resin, oil paints,  and stenciled pages. " 

Oh be still my encaustic heart!  The layers are so yummy!

Stencils Used:

Circle Line

Clouds and Stars

Sweet Face Girl

And now, my project.  I went FULL ON ASSEMBLAGE and just couldn't stop.  I used a variety of products and techniques, in addition to SG stencils and am absolutely thrilled with how it turned out.

I used almost every line of the song to incorporate the smallest of details.... 

 

 

Let's start with the stenciled bits.....
her 'kaleidoscope eyes' were created with stencils Tiny Medallion and Decorative 6 petal, alcohol ink, and Shrinky Dinks. Yup, went back to my younger days and pulled out the OG of supplies.  I created an eyeglass 'rim' with wire and am OBSESSED with the final look.  

 

 

I didn't stop with my Shrinky Dink play there.... 

I knew I wanted a 'field of flowers', so I added color to a Shrinky Dink sheet (with alcohol markers), then outlines flowers from a StencilClub April 2024 set. I then shrunk the flowers and they were the perfect size.  I added some wire to create the stalk and viola!

 

 

My last area of stenciling, was the bases, as you can see here.  Using a discontinued stencil, similar to this one, I stencils both a wooden 4x4x1 based and a 4x4x4 foam base.  I covered portions of the base with alcohol ink transparency to mimic water for my scene.

 

 

I tried to handmake the majority of the bits included here, from resin pieces, to clay roads, to my very own clay marshmallow pie ('rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies'...) 

This project has jump started my return to assemblage art.  I really love combining so many different projects, mediums to make OOK pieces. Make sure to zoom in to check out all of the lil' bits and details.

That is all for today.  Be sure to check out my IG page  to stay up to date on all of my happens....you might even see an additional Lucy in the sky with diamonds project.  (MEGA HINT HINT)

See ya around...keep creating the mayhem!

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

Gwen's Gems - Get Translucent with your Mixed Media!

Hi all, it's Gwen back with the December edition of Gwen's Gems! This month I was intrigued by the idea of doing something that was transparent / translucent in some way as opposed to working in a journal or on a canvas or panel. I decided to do some experimenting, and ended up creating an abstract mixed media assemblage with a translucent background based in an embroidery hoop!

It's a bit funky, but I really like how it came out. Are you ready to see how I made it?

To start, I took my Art Deco Medallion stencil and just traced the outside border of the circle onto a piece of chipboard, then I cut out the ring.

I had a bunch of these mirrored triangles that I'd picked up at a creative reuse center, and I liked the idea of creating something reminiscent of a sun, so I adhered those around the chipboard ring.

From here I mixed up some Aves Apoxie Sculpt (2-part epoxy clay,) and rolled out a line of it which I then layered over the ring. This locked all of my triangles in place, and also gave me somewhere to insert a whole bunch of rectangular copper sequins which I added in random directions until it was full. I also took the slip from working with the clay and spread that over all of the triangles to prime them for the paint I'd be adding later.

I set the outside ring aside to give the clay time to cure, then started working on the inside elements. To start, I took a sheet of rice paper that I'd plasticized with polymer medium and used a gold texture paste with my Art Deco Medallion stencil to start making the background that would go in the ring.

While that dried, I gathered several different elements from my stash along with a sun shape cut from cardstock using Seth Apter's Sunburst Die Set and used waxes and a gray glaze to create consistency between them before assembling them as part of the focal point.

Above you can see a close-up as I measured things out... I layered my glazed components along with a piece of a broken necklace and a cool glass dome that fit perfectly over everything. 

When the clay was cured, I pulled my ring back out and painted it - I didn't worry about changing the color of the embedded sequins, just making sure that nothing from the base layer was showing. Then I added some embossing powder to enhance the rusted / patina look I wanted. (Just a note, the sequins are a thin plastic and will curl and melt a bit when you use this kind of heat gun. I actually wanted that effect - I thought it added to the character of the piece!)

With that done, I cut out my stenciled translucent background and adhered it to the back of my frame.

Then I adhered the focal point to the center of that and added some Turkish Nazar beads to each of the triangles (those covered up some small holes that still showed through the paint.)

Next up, I wanted to create more translucent elements that I could use to anchor the center section inside of my embroidery hoop frame (I sanded the front edge of the frame to a curve to get rid of that hard line, then painted it bronze.) 

To do this part, I used the Asian Character Impressions 3 Mini stencil by Carol Weibe and a few of the designs from the Circle 6 stencil by Michelle Ward with more gold texture paste on my plasticized rice paper. When they were dry, I cut them out and then arranged them until I liked how it looked, then adhered them in place.

Of course, the polymer coating made that paper much tougher than it was, but it wouldn't hold the weight of the center section, so I took out some 24 gauge annealed wire, poked a few holes through the translucent background, and wrapped some wire around my sun frame, then wrapped the other end around the embroidery frame. I did this in five places and it was a little tricky, but I got the whole thing anchored in place and it held perfectly! (Whew!) I used a few drops of polymer medium to seal the holes around the wires, then I was good to go.

Of course, you could leave it like this and it would be pretty cool! I almost stopped here, but more is more, right?

Next I took some sari yarn and wrapped it around the frame, skipping places where the translucent background was connected.

I also took some gold thread and wrapped it around, leaving long tales hanging off the bottom where I added some Turkmen jewelry pieces to dangle below the main piece. (Normally, I'd add something like that last, but I needed to have anything that would wrap around the frame done before getting to the next step.)

After that, I wanted to add one large background, so I cut some more rice paper off of a roll and stenciled it with teal paint and Nathalie Kalbach's Manhattan stencil. Next I coated this paper with polymer medium as well and let it dry overnight.

Once dry, I cut out the circle and adhered it to the back of my frame - I love the contrast from the color and pattern!

Before adhering completely, I took some more sari ribbon and tied it around at the top to make a hanger of sorts, then sealed that off as well.

With that, I was done!

Here are a few close-ups so that you can see more of the detail:

You can really see how the light comes through the translucent backgrounds - I love the effect!

I hung the finished piece on the door of my studio - the dangling jewelry bits act a bit like chimes when they move, which I love!

That's it for this month... I hope you enjoyed today's project and that you're feeling inspired to add some translucent elements into your own work!

Until next time, happy stenciling!

Gwen