It's July 7 - Let's Celebrate Mary Beth's Birthday with a 7+7 SALE

First! A surprise for Mary Beth, because it is her special day and we love the company and community she has created in within the art world!

Now! Here's how she is sharing her birthday with all of you!

And! Mary Beth will be Livestreaming on her birthday: StencilGirl's Facebook page, July 7, 5 p.m. Central Standard Time.

You have more than 1,000 stencils to choose from at StencilGirl Products!

Birthday Cards Tutorial

Hi, everyone! Mary Nasser here today to show you what I did with the new Happy Birthday Icons stencil designed by Jessica Sporn!

I have a LOT of loved ones with spring birthdays...

Jessica Sporn's stencil to the rescue!

To begin, I used blue painter's tape to hold the stencil in place on my Mixed Media paper.

With the stencil taped to the paper, I added Sharpie Neon Markers to all the spaces of the stencil image.

Next, I removed the stencil and used a black Identi-Pen

to outline the colorful shapes and fill the negative spaces within the shapes.

The black makes the neon colors POP even more!

I repeated this process with several images from Jessica's stencil.

Using scissors, I cut each image from the sheets of paper.

I folded card stock in half, arranged the images onto the card stock,

then adhered them with Xyron adhesive dots (you could use a glue stick, too).

In no time at all, I had four bright and unique birthday cards...and had a lot of fun in the process, too!

Happy Stenciling and Happy Spring!

Mary C. Nasser

Mixed-Media Map Art

Stencils Used:

Happy Birthday Icons

Festive Stenciled Bags!

Hi! Mary Nasser here! It’s nearly Valentine’s Day, so I was inspired to make Valentine’s gift bags!

I started using Margaret Applin’s HeartSwirl stencil, but you’ll see how I quickly used 3 more stencils

to decorate gift bags for other holidays, too!

For this project, I used white paper lunch bags I had in my kitchen. 

I trimmed the top of each lunch bag with Fiskars Border Punches.

(I used the Threading Water Border Punch and Apron Lace Border Punch for my gift bags in this post.)

After punching the border along the top, I folded the top of the bag down.

Then I turned the bag over, used painters tape to keep my stencil in place, then pounced on a light layer of acrylic paint

with an ink sweeper. I kept the paint light so that it would not seep under the stencil.

Here's the front of the bag to be filled with treats:

For the back, I stamped a tag and added a ribbon: 

I was having too much fun to stop there, so I made another one, using the same process.

This time I used a November StencilClub stencil designed by Joanne Sharpe:

And here's the back:

Then I remembered Bruno's birthday next month, and reached for my

Cupcake Sprinkles stencil designed by June Pfaff Daley:

Happy Birthday, Bruno!

And soon after Bruno's birthday comes Easter.

There's a stencil for that, too!

The Rabbits stencil designed by Tracie Lyn Huskamp!

How fun would this be to fill with colorful jelly beans!

As much as I love incorporating StencilGirl stencils into my mixed media paintings,
it's really fun to do quick projects like this, too!

Hope I've inspired you!

Mary C. Nasser

Mixed-Media Map Art