Positive-Negative

Welcome to another Thursday's Dream Schemes challenge! This week the Dreamweaver Stencils Dream Team was given another designer's choice, which led to my title of "Positive-Negative". You know the feeling...sometimes what you're creating is "positive" (you love it), but sometimes it can be a "negative" if you don't like what you made! Lucky for you, I can show you how to make even your negatives positive!

This beautiful Pear (LL563 Lg Pear) stencil is perfect for using the Memories Mist sprays that Dreamweaver sells. The process is a little messy, but the results make it well worthwhile. I created a "spray box" by taking a copy paper box and removing one of the long sides creating a three-sided box. Whenever I use the sprays I like to start with a clean piece of white paper in the bottom of the box (usually I cut an 8 1/2" x 11" in half to get two pieces 5 1/2" x 8 1/2"). Then center the paper you are spraying on the white paper, and center the stencil on that. Hold the bottle as upright as possible when you spray (aim towards the back of the box) so that the mist goes straight out them falls gently onto your design. By controlling your aim, you can somewhat control where you spray, but this is by no means an exact process! When you add a second color, try not to overlap your spray areas too much or it can get a little muddy looking. I started with a light coat of Mango Lemonade (yellow), added some Orange Juice and just a hint of Strawberry Daiquiri near the bottom of the pear, then finish off with Wheatgrass near the top of the pear. Now carefully lift your stencil off and behold a beautiful pear!

But we're not done yet! That was the positive image, but look at all that wonderful spray still sitting on the top of your stencil. I can't bear to waste things, so I take another piece of cardstock and carefully press on the ink that collected on the stencil. Lift it off to see the "negative" of what you just created. Two beautiful images every time you spray!

BUT WAIT!! We're still not finished! That piece of paper that you put in the bottom of the box is too beautiful to throw away. It will become the background paper for the front of our card! If you trim it right it will match up with your design perfectly. Cut a little mat for your image to help hide the white area where your sprayed paper sat. I left the background and the pear with just the spray so you could get a clear idea of how it works, but once the sprays are dry (just a couple of minutes) you could stencil another stencil in the background, or an overlay on the pear. Not sure what that means? Just wait...I'll show you another day!

Here's the negative of the spraying. As you can see, it too could be mounted into another beautiful card.

Just a note, the colors in these photos are darker than they actually are on the card. Hope you've enjoyed today's lesson. The possibilities with your stencils are endless!
As always, don't forget to check out the DREAM it UP! blog as well as the other designers blogs.

Happy New Year and Happy Creating,
Louise