Happy HallowThanksMas Week 4!

Can you tell that sometimes Dream Team's "Fearless Leader", Pam Hornschu, has a hard time deciding on monthly challenges? Since the team will be taking turns all month with the Smeared and Smudged 31 Days of Halloween, and we did a Christmas collaboration with Stampendous and Core'dinations the 13th - 17th, the confusion should be understandable. Therefore...happy HallowThanksMas! As usual, we'd love for you to play along with the challenge and link your creations to the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog. Just in case you are wondering...NO, YOU DO NOT NEED TO POST SOMETHING WITH ALL THREE HOLIDAYS ON IT! However, you get bonus points for actually using Dreamweaver stencils and product on your creations! And bonus points might actually earn you an extra stencil as our monthly winner...just sayin'!

Here's my creation for this week:

LJ832 Give Thanks stencil
LL515 Pumpkins
LL3008  Tall wheat

LJ832 Give Thanks in Matte Black Embossing Paste with
Metallic FX Powders

Several team members have been participating in the 31 Days of Halloween Smeared and Smudged hop, and we just featured a lot of Christmas designs in our hop last week with the Stampendous and Core'dinations teams, so I thought I'd feature the "Thanks" part of our challenge. 

• Start with a natural square mirror from Ikea
• Paint across the bottom with some greens and brown acrylic paints (I used Distress Acrylic Paints) 
• Move up the mirror with yellows, oranges, rust, and little red, blending them together
• Dry with a heat tool to make sure the paints are dry
• Lay the Tall wheat stencil (LL3008) in different areas and stencil with the brown paint
• Paste emboss the Pumpkins stencil (LL515) on green cardstock with Matte Yellow Embossing Paste, let dry (do this twice)
• When the pumpins are dry, use the paints to stencil on color
• Tape off the Give Thanks part of LJ832, place the stencil in the lower left corner of the mirror and paste emboss with Matte Black Embossing Paste
• Remove stencil and let paste dry for about 8-10 minutes
• Clean and dry stencil, tape off the cornucopia part, leaving just the words
• Paste emboss the words in the upper right area of the mirror
• Remove stencil and let paste dry
• Use a soft brush to brush Metallic FX powders on the almost dry paste
• When paste is completely dry, use a swiffer cloth to remove any extra powders
• Cut out the two sets of Pumpkins, adhere one set flat onto the mirror, use foam mounting tape on the second set

Check out more great HallowThanksMas designs on the design team blogs below:

Dream It Up!

Lyn Bernatovich

Louise Healy

Alison Heikkila

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Hornschu

Gill Wilson

Kristi Parker Van Doren

Happy Creating,

Louise
An InLinkz Link-up

Mystical and Magical Week 2!

We hope you enjoyed week one of our spooky, mystical and magical land of Halloween and holidays. This week the Dreamweaver design team has another set of great creations to share with you and we hope you will consider joining our challenge. Just link your creation with the linky tool over at the DREAM it UP! blog or email a photo of your work to lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com and she will post it for you. You could win a prize! 
The month of October we have as our guest designer, Alison Heikkila. October promises to be a very creative month, you won't want to miss any of it!
Here's my design for this week:

LJ816 - Spider web, LL531 - Jack o lanterns
LS28 - Spider, LG749 - Doggy words

Here's how it's done:

• Paste emboss the Spider web stencil (LJ816) with Glossy White Embossing Paste (angle the stencil across the upper left corner of black cardstock)
• Remove the stencil and place in water for cleaning, immediately sprinkle the wet paste with Crystal glitter
• Let dry
• Paste emboss the Jack o lanterns stencil (LL531) with Matte Yellow Embossing Paste in the lower right corner
• Remove the stencil and place in water for cleaning
• Let dry
• Return the Jack o lanterns stencil over the dry paste and use small stencil brushes to apply ink over the paste (I used Splendor Ink - Circus ink pad)
• Paste emboss the Spider stencil (LS28) on white cardstock with Glossy Black Embossing Paste
• Remove the stencil and place in water for cleaning
• Sprinkle Metallic F/X powder Nouveau Orange randomly over the wet paste
• Let dry
• Cut out the spider as close as possible to all the legs, use a Distress marker in antique linen to color the white edges throughout the design
• Attach to the web with foam tape
• Use the Dog words stencil (LG749), a small stencil brush and Memento Tuxedo Black to stencil the "happy" from the Happy HOWLoween part of the stencil
• Line up the Happy underneath the first one and a little to the left, tape off only the "Ha" and stencil that, use the "pp" upside down to create the two l's (minus the round part of course!), then the "oween" next to that
• Use a deckle scissors to cut around the words, and brush the background with the left over black ink from the brush, mount the words on a small orange mat with a deckled edge
• Use foam tape to add the words to the card

Now check out the rest of the team blogs:

Dream It Up! 

Alison Heikkila (guest designer)
Lea Kimmel 
Louise Healy 
Stacey Rumsby 
Terrece Siddoway 
Wendy Jordan 
Pam Hornschu 
Cherylynn Moser

This week I have been taking Creative Chemistry 102 with Tim Holtz. Scroll down to see what we've been creating!

Happy Creating,
Louise

Dreamweaver & Quietfire Awesome in Autumn! Finale!

Our amazing week of Awesome in Autumn concludes today! This has been a wonderful week playing with the Quietfire Design team, and their amazing images and sentiments. Their beautiful calligraphic style, quotes and thoughts are the perfect addition to our Dreamweaver designs. We hope you have followed along with us, and have left your comments for an opportunity to win one of two wonderful prize packages:

Here's what I've created for today's post:

Yesterday I showed you one corner of the beautiful Fall borders (LJ874) stencil from Dreamweaver Stencils. Today, I have used the other corner along with the Leaf texture (LG616) stencil (did you notice those two little leaves in the lower corner of yesterday's design?), and the same beautiful saying "Every blade in the field" saying (#5820) from Quietfire Design.

• Tape the pumpkin corner to the corner of Distress Antique Linen cardstock with removable tape
• Use a palette knife and paste spreader to apply Matte Yellow Embossing Paste over the stencil
• Remove the stencil and place in water for cleaning
• Let the paste dry
• Tape the Leaf texture stencil to the shiny side of a piece of freezer paper with removable tape
• Use a palette knife and paste spreader to apply Matte Yellow Embossing Paste over the stencil
• Remove the stencil and place in water for cleaning
• Let the paste dry thoroughly
• Stamp the saying on matching cardstock
• Use a Deckle edge scissors to trim around the saying
• Use Distress ink vintage photo around the edges of the saying, then edge a little darker with Distress ink walnut stain
• Mount on a piece of Distress Frayed Burlap cardstock that has been edged with ink too, set aside
• Place your clean, dry stencils back over the dry yellow paste and tape in place with removable tape
• Use small stencil brushes to add color, I used Distress inks mustard seed, spiced marmalade, forest moss, vintage photo, and walnut stain, as well as just a touch of Brilliance Rocket Red
• After the pumpkin corner is colored, Deckle the edge and ink with vintage photo and walnut stain
• Mount on a frayed burlap card front
• CAREFULLY peel different leaves off the freezer paper and arrange them along the bottom edge
• Once you like the placement, gently lift an edge with a toothpick and add a dab of glue to secure them
• Use foam mounting tape to adhere the saying
• Add a leaf to the saying too

We hope you have enjoyed our designs this week and have been inspired to create your own Autumn Awesomeness!

 Check out today's awesomeness which includes...

Quietfire Design Members...

Sherry Cheever

Holly Eastabrook

Yogi Grunwald

Robyn Josephs

Teresa Horner

Suzanne Cannon

and

Dream Team members...

Jessica Griffin

Cyndi Bundy

Wendy Jordan

Lyn Bernatovich

Louise Healy (you are here)

Terrece Siddoway

Lea Kimmel

Heidi Erickson

Laura Drahozal

Cherylynn Moser
Stacey Rumsby

Pam Hornschu

and the

Dream It Up! blog

and

Quietfire Creations Blog

Happy Creating,

Louise

Festively Fall Week 2!

Welcome back for week two of our Dreamweaver Stencils challenge to create "Festively Fall" cards or projects. Fall is my favorite time of year so I have been really enjoying this challenge and have a fun technique to share with you today...creating embellishments with stencils and paste! I think you'll like the results! Here's the process:

Place your stencil on the shiny side of
a piece of freezer paper

Tape down the stencil with removable tape

Use the paste spreader to apply
Dreamweaver Matte Yellow Embossing Paste

Remove and clean your stencils,
let the paste dry

Tape your clean, dry stencil back over
the dry paste

Use small stencil brushes and ink pads to add color
use the Picasso (LL332) to create veins

Remove and clean the stencil

Repeat the coloring steps for each design

LS78-Maple leaf, LG728-Blowing leaves
LL3004-Falling leaves, LG616-Leaf texture

Carefully peel your pasted image off the freezer paper



Transfer it where you think you want it



You are still able to move it around at this point to
try it out around your design

Complete your layers and use Tacky Glue
to add your leaf embellishments!

Here's a close up!

The Pumpkins (LL515) were pasted on cardstock with the Matte Yellow paste, dried, then colored with stencil brushes just like the leaves. Extra color was brushed along the edge to create a more distressed, fall look. I used Distress Inks, Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick, Peeled Paint, Forest Moss, Vintage Photo, and Walnut Stain.
Remember, when you pick your stencil design, it has to be a complete image for this technique to work (no bridges, just open area).  I think the Cat watch stencil (LM266) would be awesome done in black paste (matte or glossy) and used as a black cat embellishment on a Halloween card!

Check out more great fall designs the rest of the team has created for you this week, and don't forget, we would really love it if you joined our challenge and linked your creation on the DREAM it UP! blog. You might win! You can also send a picture of your creation to lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com and she will post it for you. You can't win if you don't play!

Dream It Up! blog
Pam Hornschu
Laura Drahozal
Cherylynn Moser
Terrece Siddoway
Kristi Van Doren
Georgia Sommers
Lee Kellogg
Liz Martin
Cyndi Bundy

One more thing! I've updated my class schedule for the rest of October and November so check for classes in your area!

Happy Creating,
Louise