Reverse Stenciling

First the back story...

Last fall I joined a weekly Bible Study/craft group. We shared our worries and our joys and discussed our Daily Devotion and how it applied to our lives. THEN... we made a craft.
Yes, I know! THAT is a great combination!

I'm going to share the awesome book I worked on from week to week in another post. But, out of all the techniques we were taught from our inspirational leader Diana, this reverse stenciling thing was so easy and packed a punch.

I knew right away I could use it in more wedding crafty goodness.

Daniel and Katie's wedding was taking place in a barn with the reception taking place in a big fancy tent.

And in between the two was a trailer housing the bathrooms!

Then there was the thought 

"how can those bathrooms look crafty and charming?"

With some cute signs of course!

So, with the bride's blessing, I began this simple little project

•First I cut scraps of paper with mostly yellows and grays and used a mixture of white glue and water (very watery) to adhere the pieces all over the canvas board.
•I cut out photos of Daniel and Katie from when they were little.
The 'photos' were actually photocopies that I did on a laser printer at a local FedEx Office Print and Ship Center.
•please note that the photo is just printed on
regular paper not photo paper!

•Next you will need a set of alphabet stickers
You select the font and size
The color doesn't matter
you'll be throwing away the letters that you use in this project

•I placed the letters right on top of the paper scraps
that were already glued to the canvas board.

•Next I used an artist palette knife to spread Patching Plaster OVER the background of the canvas board
INCLUDING over the letters!
I went close to the photo's edge but not over the photo.
I used the Patching Plaster by DAP sold at my local Lowe's
This is actually a great compound for lots of art projects.
I keep my tub in my studio, not in the garage!
Also, it's nice to let a little of the background paper
show through here and there.

• Before the Plaster dried, I removed the letter stickers.
I used a straight pin to pick at a corner of a letter.
With the pin I was able to lift the sticker up and off of the canvas.
I did this step immediately after I finished spreading the plaster.
Once you get a corner lifted with the pin
you can gently pull up the entire letter with your fingers!

Here is the result!

When it is completely dry
you can apply a protective finish.
Then just add a ribbon to the back for hanging!

•••••
As I said at the beginning of this post
I learned this technique from my good friend Diana.

Below was my first attempt.
I will show off my little book in another post.
You'll even see how these pages
changed and took on new life.

Another thing to note by looking at this example
is how bold the paper is for some of the letters
and not for others
•Lesson learned•
use strong colors
such as what I used for "my"
and the "han" of "hand"

handmade wedding part two • DIY paper flowers • Swirls

ok, where were we?
Good thing it didn't take me as long to make the flowers as it did to blog about them!

I made two types of flowers for the rehearsal dinner. The solid yellow ones were super easy. I used two different yellow papers. One was plain and one had a texture in sort of a linen look with a slight shimmer. I thought this subtle difference would add a little depth.

start with a six inch square

draw a swirl and cut on the line

 start rolling from the outer ring to the center

 in the first section of the photo below

 I am holding the rolled up flower fairly tightly

in #2 I have let go

in #3 I have bent the wire stem, bringing

the end up through the punched hole

that I punched earlier with a 1/16th paper punch

if you look closely at the first photo on this post

you will see the tiny punched hole

I used hot glue here to secure the stem to the flower

#4 shows a pile of flowers BEFORE I added the stems

you may or may not 

want to add some dots of hot glue

here and there between the layers

of swirls.

I did because I wanted each flower

to look a little different.

the glue holds some layers closer together

while pulling some further apart. 

SPECIAL NOTE

My niece Emma made her own version of these for her wedding in July. She painted sheet music and book pages with water color to create her own paper. I'm guessing that she drew more swirls than I did as she had many 'layers' to her flowers. 

What a beautiful version.

her bouquet 

real greenery 

paper flower

genius!

even on the cake!  

 

Paris and Pooh

How does a dear friend's 50th birthday slip by so quickly?

There was that surprise party in early November.

That's when I thought I still had plenty of time to make a special gift.

Then Thanksgiving AND the actual birthday

came and went.

then Christmas.

then New Year's.

Suddenly months have slipped by and all I had was a blank canvas

and some ideas.

I decided the canvas should represent all the 50th birthday celebrations that she had been blessed with.

a trip to Paris with her husband.

a trip to the Azores with her high school friends.

the surprise party.

and Pooh.

Pooh was important because she loves Pooh

and so do I.

The phrase I chose makes me think

of an imagined conversation

between she and I.

You see, I don't just slap paint on a canvas.

I put my heart on the canvas.

Here's how it went

well hello

you must either be:

a. a family member 

2. I caved and told you about my blog

c. you just stumbled upon it, perhaps through facebook, perhaps through my website it's by design

no matter how you arrived, Welcome!

I decided to start a blog because even though I work three days a week for Ornamentea.com, and design and make jewelry for it's by design, I love all kinds of other art forms.  I love fabric and quilts.  I haven't made a quilt in years, not since I started making jewelry.  But, that doesn't stop me from thinking about making quilts!  Last year I tried needle felting and turned that into a pillow.  I want to do more of that, it was like drawing with fiber.

I also love to make any type of collage.  I love my fingers in the glue and a palette full of paints. 

So here's what I'm thinking...this blog will be a place where I post photos of projects I'm working on or projects I've completed.  I may post links to inspirations too.  Maybe this will motivate me to work on some unfinished projects, every artist has those!  And those of you who know me even know what my unfinished projects are.

Let's face it, the fun part of making something is showing it to someone!  It feels a little weird to post it on facebook all the time, sort of 'look at me, look at me'.  This way I can share with family and friends who are actually interested!  So, if you're interested... stay tuned....

ps. My first little piece of art is the image at the top of this blog.  I took the photo in The Owl Post in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in December.  I loved the stack of old books and wasn't sure what I'd use the photo for.  With a little messing around in Photoshop, I came up with that image.

Here's to a life long love of ART!