Old, New, Borrowed, Blue Finale!

June is quickly coming to an end and the Fourth of July is only a week away!!! Slow down and enjoy the creations the Dream Team has for you in this final week of June. At Dreamweaver Stencils, we love to make our monthly challenges something for everyone, and not so strict that no one wants to play along. This month our challenge is, "Old, New, Borrowed, Blue", with the obvious thought being a wedding theme...but not necessarily. Add an old embellishment or picture. Use a new stencil design or technique. Borrow, or CASE (copy and say everything) another designers project, and obviously, blue...is blue. Where will YOUR creative process take you for this month? We'd love to see! And remember, linking your creations with the Inklinkz tool at the end of the team posts, provides you with the opportunity to win the stencil of your choice!
Here's my creation this week:

LL447 Lg Fleur de lis with LJ841 Fleur de lis in the background

This fits the "old" and "blue" categories nicely I think! The stencils, LL447 Lg Fleur de lis and LJ841 Fleur de lis,  were both originally released in 2003, so they are "older" stencils, and the technique I used gives it an "old fashioned feel". It is so pretty in person, pictures never really do justice to touching and feeling!
Here's how to do it:

• Tape the background stencil (LJ841) to a piece of black cardstock with removable tape
• Use a sponge applicator (the ones from IMAGINE Crafts work great) to apply a coat of VersaMark (also from IMAGINE Crafts) over the entire stencil, making sure to get in the thin grid lines
• Remove the stencil and place in water for cleaning
• Sprinkle the image with Clear Embossing Powder (not the SuperFine, just regular), tap off the excess and heat emboss
• Do the same thing with the Lg Fleur de lis
• Choose a couple of colors of acrylic paints (I used Distress Paints weathered wood and broken china), place a small puddle of the lighter color on your craft mat and pick it up with a foam applicator to apply in all over the embossed image (be generous, you want a nice layer of paint), then blend in some of the darker color
• Do that to both embossed pieces
• Let them dry until they are almost completely dry, use a slightly damp cloth or paper towel to GENTLY remove some of the paint off of the embossed areas, be patient!
• Let them dry thoroughly
• It's hard to see in the picture, but I used Tim Holtz's edge distressing tool to rough up the edges of both painted layers, it exposes the black edge of the paper and really adds to the aged feeling
• The background layer was added to the front of a black base card, and the Lg Fleur de lis was added with foam mounting tape
• Some beautiful ribbons from May Arts always give a great finishing touch

The "B" team has more great creations for you on their blogs too!

Dream It Up!

Lyn Bernatovich

Louise Healy

Alison Heikkila

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Hornschu

Gill Wilson

Happy Creating,
Louise

An InLinkz Link-up

Countdown to Christmas!

Only 2 full weeks left until Christmas! Are you in a panic yet? Hopefully you have everything under control and have the time to enjoy the season. The Dreamweaver Stencils design team wants to help you with those last minute gift and tag ideas that are sure to come up in the next couple of weeks. Our challenge for the month of December is "Holidays in a Hurry!", perfect for quick little projects that will look like you spent hours!
This week I am showing you a great project that I love to use for hostess gifts during the holidays, or all year long. It's a folder with matching notecards and can be created with virtually any papers and stencils. The sky's the limit! Here's a sample:

Lg Fleur de lis (LL447) in Matte Black Embossing Paste

Four matching notecards and envelopes tuck in the pockets of the folder

Coordinate your notecards to the folder papers for a beautiful presentation

The steps for this project were posted on  May 9, 2013, click here to see the step by step pictures for this easy project:  Just change the papers and stencil to ones you like! Here's a sample of the one on the instructions:

The rest of the team has more great ideas for you. Here's this week's list of designers:

Dream It Up! 

Laura Drahozal 
Lyn Bernatovich 
Pam Hornschu 
Heidi Erickson 
Louise Healy  
Cyndi Bundy

Happy Creating,
Louise

Day 3 Dreamweaver and Stampendous

Welcome to day 3 of the Dreamweaver Stencils and Stampendous Blog Hop. We have seen some great ideas so far on how to combine your stencils and the wonderful products from Stampendous. I'm sure today will be no exception.

It's fun in the sun time again with another collaboration between Stampendous and Dreamweaver Stencils! We'll be playing together all of this week, with a fabulous hop on Friday, August 2nd, featuring a slew of amazing talent from both teams, and of course...prizes!!!

Two prize packages will be given away for the comments left on posts Monday-Thursday, July 29th - August 1st, and one prize will be given away for comments left on the hop day, Friday, August 2nd. Winners will be selected randomly and announced Thursday, August 8th. (Note: USA addresses only, please, due to shipping costs.) Here's what you could win:

Stampendous Surfer and Sandcastle Kiddos • Dreamweaver Hot Air Balloon, Ice Cream Cones, Summer, Mosaic Swirls, Bird Words, and Sandcastle stencils

 Here's what I created:

LL447 - Fleur de lis (new release)
LJ841 - Fleur de lis (background)

Close up of LL447

Close up of LJ841

Steps:

• Tape LL447 Fleur de lis to Aqua cardstock with removable tape
• Use a palette knife and paste spreader to apply Matte Black Embossing Paste
• Sprinkle with Stampendous Teal Mica Flakes (from EJK06 Encrusted Jewel Teal Kit) and press them into the wet paste carefully
• Sprinkle the whole thing with Sky Blue Embossing Powder (also from EJK06), it has some glitter in it too
• Remove the stencil and place in water
• Heat set the powder, be careful of the mica flakes, pull back if they start to smoke!
• Trim, and mat on a small black mat
• Repeat the steps for the background except only use the Sky Blue Embossing Powder
• Trim and mat with strips of black on two sides
• Mount onto a coordinating card
• Use foam tape to attach the larger Fleur de lis

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but this has incredible texture to it, and a lot of sparkle!

Now, hop on over to the next in line. Don't forget to leave some love for a chance to win, and just 'cuz it's nice!

Dream It Up! 

Stampendous

Jamie Martin 

Terrece Siddoway

Louise Healy (you're here)

Lyn Bernatovich
Tobi Crawford
Asia King

Happy Creating,
Louise