Summertime, Sparklers, S'more!

Hello everyone. Today I am on my way up to northern Minnesota to celebrate Christmas in July with my husband's family. We have been doing this for many years now and it is absolutely wonderful! No hassles or guilt at the holidays themselves, and no snow! We have traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas food, presents, games, bonfires, boating, fishing, it's four days of family fun!
But I wouldn't leave you high and dry with no Thursday inspiration. Thank goodness for technology, it gives us a lot of freedom to share ideas no matter where we are, or aren't! This months Dreamweaver Stencils theme is Summertime, Sparklers, S'more and this week I am sharing another re-released stencil with you. This one I saved especially for this week because it reminds me of the cattails around the lakes in northern MN and it's sparkly!

LL3035 - Cattails Scene
LL517 - Cattails

Steps:

• Cut a piece of Dreamweaver double sided mounting paper the same size as the stencil
• Cut a light brown mat 1/4" inch larger in each direction than the stencil
• Remove the release paper from one side of the mounting paper and center it on the mat
• Use Dreamweaver's Handmade Hawaiian soap to apply a light layer of soap to the back of the stencil
• Use a large stencil brush to remove any crumbs of soap from the openings of surface of the stencil
• Remove the top piece of release paper from the mounting paper and center the stencil, soap side down, over the sticky surface
• Use the release paper to press all the bridges of the stencil down to the sticky paper
• Use a cut straw to apply Ranger Distress Embossing Powders to each opening 
• I used a combination of Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick for the sun, Weathered Wood and Broken China in the water, Walnut Stain in the cattails and birds, and Frayed Burlap, Shabby Shutters and Peeled Paint in the leaves
• Press the powders down with your finger or a piece of release paper
• Use a stencil brush to gently brush away any extra powder
• Turn the image face down on a paper towel and carefully peel the paper off the stencil, being sure to use your other hand to keep your stencil flat on the table
• Use a heat gun to heat set the powders
• Sprinkle the background with Crystal glitter (the "Sparkler" part of the challenge!)
• Mount on a darker brown mat
• Use kraft cardstock as a cardbase
• Tape the Cattails stencil (LL517) toward the left edge and use a 1/2" stencil brush and Memento Rich Cocoa ink to stencil color through the openings, repeat a couple times across the card ( I moved the stencil down a little to extend the stems to the bottom of the card before I move to the next grouping)
• Mount the Cattails Scene in the lower right corner with foam tape
• A GREAT guy card, especially if they are the "outdoorsy type"!

Check out the other team member's creations this week. 

Dream It Up! 

Wendy Price

Lea Kimmel 

Louise Healy (me!)

Stacey Rumsby 

Terrece Siddoway 

Caroline Duncan 

Pam Hornschu 

Cherylynn Moser

Next week we will be having a blog hop with the team over at Stampendous.

It's fun in the sun time again with another collaboration between Stampendous and Dreamweaver Stencils! We'll be playing together all of next 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

Happy Creating,

Louise

Festively Distressed Fall!

The Dream Team designers are so excited to have the opportunity to play along with some unique Ranger Products in the Tim Holtz line...specifically, the Distressed Embossing Powders! Our own Louise Healy demonstrated how fabulous these are with the Dreamweaver Stencils when she created this card for a fun class at CHA Summer 2012:

Apparently, Tim Holtz agreed with all of us on this unique use of his product, so he very generously had Ranger (thanks, Patti!) send the team some samples to play and blog with. So...here we go!

Here's my post for today:

Start with a natural finish wood mirror, I used
an Ikea 10" square mirror

Use the Ranger Adirondack Snow Cap Dabber to
put a white washed look over the whole mirror.
Let it dry, or use a heat tool.



Apply Distress Stains to create sky and ground areas,
wiping gently between colors with a soft cloth or paper towel.

Dry with a heat tool to make sure the stains are
completely dry before continuing.

Tape LG687 - Geese stencil to the upper right corner.
Use a small stencil brush to apply Distress Ink black soot over the design.

Use foam to apply a layer of Distress embossing Ink over the geese.

Sprinkle with Distress embossing powder black soot,
tap off excess and heat thoroughly. Brush gently with
hand when cool to remove the distress crystals.

Place LL517 - Cattails stencil in lower right corner and
use a small stencil brush to apply Distress Inks vintage photo.

Apply a layer of Distress embossing Ink.
Sprinkle the pods with vintage photo Distress powder, and the
leaves with frayed burlap Distress powder. Tap off excess and heat set.

Repeat the cattails two more times in the left corner.
Add additional inks to create more depth (I added evergreen bough and
broken china to the "water" area using a small stencil brush. I also
added some spice marmalade behind the cattails using Cut 'n Dry foam
then finished the edge with walnut stain Distress Ink on a foam applicator)

Finish it off with some garden twine and a charm, plus a few
of the leaves I had left over from last weeks project! 

If you missed last week's post on how to create pasted embellishments with your stencils, click here.
See that little mirror in the mirror, that is from a CHA class that I took with Tim Holtz one year. It was the first time I had worked with his Distress Embossing Powders and I have been hooked ever since! You really need to give them a try, they give such texture to your projects!

For the next four weeks, on our regular Thursday posts, we will be featuring the wonderful things that you can do with Tim's Distress Powders and Dreamweaver Stencils. Leave comments on each of the team blog posts for opportunities to win one prize package for each of the four weeks:

Ranger Ink Blog

Dream It Up!

Wendy Jordan

Liz Martin

Kristi Van Doren

Lee Kellogg

Pam Hornschu

Cherylynn Moser

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Cyndi Bundy

Terrece Siddoway

Georgia Sommers

Don't forget to play along with the Dream Team's monthly challenges for more opportunities to win some great stencil designs! October's challenge is Festively Fall, and November is CAS (clean and simple) Christmas! Link your creations on the Dream It Up! blog, or email pics to lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com. Join us on Facebook as well! Lots of inspiration, and lots of fun!

I didn't even know this was the prize stencil when I created my project this week!
Here are a couple of other cards I have created with the Double-glitter technique substituting Ranger's Distress Embossing Powders for the glitter and then heat setting when finished.

LG745 - Tree line

LG743 - Stylized dahlia

LL379 - Tall palm trees

Happy Creating,
Louise