Summertime, Sparklers and S'More!

*correction to instructions add 6:00 pm, sorry!

Welcome back to the Dreamweaver Stencils July challenge. The rain has finally stopped here in northern Illinois and it is now our normal hot and muggy summertime, which fits our challenge perfectly! Congratulations to our winners from the Dreamweaver/Ranger blog hop! Don't forget to contact Lynell for your prize.
I'm continuing my beach theme this week with a card that just screams "hot summer day at the beach!". Of course, a hot summer day at the beach is fine with me, I wish we were there!

LR502-Sun and LL3033-Sandcastle

This is the same technique I used on my home decor piece on June 13th, if you missed it click here to check it out. It's a fun technique that shows a lot of dimension.

• Tape the Sun (LR502) stencil to yellow cardstock with removable tape onto a piece of copy paper
• Use a palette knife and paste spreader to apply Matte Black Embossing Paste over the Sun
• With the stencil still in place, carefully sprinkle some Distress Embossing Powder in Mustard Seed and Spiced marmalade over the wet paste, tap it gently in place
• Lift the whole copy paper and turn it over to tap off any extra powder (be careful!)
• Gently remove the stencil from the image trying not to let any move powder fall through the openings (the goal is to keep the edges black)
• Place the stencil in water for cleaning
• Heat set the emossing powder, set aside to let the paste dry completely
• Repeat the process with the Sandcastle (LL3033) stencil but using blue cardstock, and a mixture of Distress Embossing Powders Antique Linen, Peeled Paint, and Fired brick
• Heat set the embossing powders and let it dry thoroughly
• Cut out the Sun leaving a small yellow edge all the way around
• Use the Picasso (LL332) stencil to put some clouds in the sky above the sandcastle. When you do this on blue paper, you first use a 3/4" stencil brush and white ink to make some areas white (I like Brilliance Moonlight White), then use the edge of the Picasso and a 1/2" brush with a light blue ink to create the "cloud" at the edge of the white areas
• Use a 1/2" brush to add some brown ink at the bottom of the sandcastle
• Use foam tape to apply the sun to the sky

I hope you are enjoying your summer and the summertime creations the team has been showing. Be sure to check out what they've created this week for you!

Dream It Up! 

Wendy Price

Lea Kimmel 

Louise Healy (me!)

Stacey Rumsby 

Terrece Siddoway 

Caroline Duncan 

Pam Hornschu 

Cherylynn Moser

Happy Creating,

Louise

Pintrest Inspiration

Welcome back to week two of our Dreamweaver Stencils June challenge. This month we are creating projects based on things that inspire us on Pinterest. There are so many wonderful ideas that people are willing to share, it is easy to spend hours looking at all the pretty pictures and forget to actually create something yourself! This week I was inspired by a beautiful creation I found by Lynette Carroll Designs. Unfortunately, her website is not functioning right now, but you can still enjoy this link to the picture
http://pinterest.com/pin/166492517447323672/

I just loved the muted tones and how everything went together so beautifully. Mine is not shabby chic like hers, but it uses the same principles of soft tones, and each image following a theme. This project will also act as my "final design" for the Dreamweaver Stencils Teacher Certification class that I took last month from Lynell. This technique was one of my favorite that week. It is very easy, but very stunning I think.  I'm hoping to get it in a black frame and photograph it again before this posts, but there is a huge storm passing over our area right now, so I'm not sure that is going to happen! If not, you can still enjoy this much of it!

"At the shore"

LM181 - Seahorse

LM106 - Scallop

LM209 - Starfish

LM104 - Nautilus

LM290 - Par escargot

LM179 - Sea turtle

LL3033 - Sand castle

LM267 - Lg conch

It's hard to tell from the photo, but the finished size is 12" x 12". Each of the images is done with the same way:

• Place the paper to be pasted on a craft mat or scrap piece of paper and tape the stencil in place using removable tape
• Use a palette knife and paste spreader to apply Dreamweaver Matte Black Embossing Paste
• With the stencil still on, sprinkle the whole image with Ranger Distress Embossing Powder, I used a combination of Antique Linen (2+ parts), Fired Brick (1 part), and Peeled Paint (1 part) to create a "sandy" color
• Lift the whole craft sheet or scrap paper up to tap off excess powder while the stencil is still on the paste
• Set it back down and carefully remove three sides of the tape, leaving your hinge tape in place
• Gently lift the stencil off the paste trying not to let any more powder fall through the openings
• Heat set the embossing powder
• I used Coordinations Iced Cocoa paper to paste and as the background, and matted each image with a cream colored cardstock
• Stencils used: LL3033, LM104, LM106, LM209, LM181, LM179, LM267, LM290, the seahorse was pasted first one direction, cleaned and then pasted the other direction
• I also lightly sanded the paper to give it a more weathered look

Here's the finished project on my fireplace. It fits in perfect with my shell filled lanterns and our conch shells.

Don't forget to click over to the other team members blogs to see what they've been inspired by this week over at Pinterest! We are so happy to have Jennifer Dove joining our challenge this month as a guest designer.

Dream It Up!

Jennifer Dove 

Lea Kimmel 

Stacey Rumsby

Terrece Siddoway 

Caroline Duncan 

Pam Hornschu 

Cherylynn Moser 

Cyndi Bundy

 Jessica Griffin  

Happy Creating,
Louise