Blog Hopping With Nathalie Kalbach's New Stencils and Stencil Girl Products

I'm really honored to be a part of todays blog hop showcasing a fabulous stencil designed by Nathalie Kalbach for Stencil Girl Products. I've been waiting with great anticipation for her designs to come to the market place and I know that you will love them as much as I do. Let's take a look at the stencil and what I created with it.

If you remember what this is...raise your hand?

The TYPEWRITER...the bain of my existence for my college years! Every term paper pounded out on a double layer of onionskin with carbon paper in between. Typing along and then BAM...a mistake! Somehow though I made it through all those term papers and graduate from college!

Fast forward to today...how do we communicate in the 21st century???? I love the new technology and I would call myself a techie, the new advances are so up my alley. That is the concept for this journal page using the fabulous new stencil designed by Nathalie Kalbach.

My background started as a MOP page in my Dylusions Creative Journal Page. This is the place where I mop up any excess ink sprays {can't waste that good stuff}. On this page are all the various Dylusions Ink Spray colors.

I wanted the this typewriter stencil to take center stage so using Wendy Veechi Studio 490 Black Embossing Paste I scrapped the paste over the stencil, removed the stencil and allowed the paste to dry completely.

To complete the journal page I took screen shots of all the various forms of technology, social medium platforms and communication that I use on a daily basis. The photos you will see are from my individual pages. The icons are all free social media icons found on the web, along with the composite picture of the Apple products I use. 

Do these look familiar to you? I'm betting they do! I am a creature of my own technology and communication forms and wonder how far these innovations will go. I'm hate to admit I will anxiously be waiting for all the new things to come.

Thank you for stopping by and I'm pretty sure you might find a GIVEAWAY over at Nat's Blog BUT...she tells me if you comment here too you will have another entry into her giveaway! As a matter of fact she will give you an entry into the giveaway for each blog you comment on--how cool is that! -Nathalie gives away one of the this Typewriter Stencils. You have five chances to win it. Leave a comment on each of the listed blogs and on my blog  and let us know how you like the projects and Nathalie will pick randomly one lucky winner. You have time to comment till August 20, 2013 - midnight EST.

Blog Hop Participants:

Nathalie Kalbach

Martha Richardson <------ ME

Maria McGuire

Corrine Gilman

Michelle Hernandez

Stencils, Mail Art and Helmar!

If you are a follower of my blog then you already know how much I love to use stencils and Dylusions Ink Spray to create my own background papers. I start with a 6x6" square of 140lb. Strathmore Watercolor Paper...this gives me the opportunity to see how a stencil will look, gives me the opportunity to play with color combinations and have lots of fun paper laying around for future projects.

Here are 3 MAIL ART projects I created for a cross promo between HELMAR & Viva LasVegaStamps Design Teams. You can read more about this project here.

Stencils Used:

The Crafter's Workshop

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer Pomegranate {TCW285}

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer Echoes {TCW371}

Ronda Palazzari Honeycomb {TCW346}

Do you like working with stencils...what are your favorites?

Thanks for Stopping by...time for me to get my art on!

*Ranger DYLUSIONS INK SPRAY SET OF 12 Dyan Reaveley

*Helmar 450 QUICK DRY ADHESIVE 800775

*Faber-Castell BLACK Essential PITT Artist Pens

*Faber-Castell METALLIC COLOR Set PITT Artist Pens

*Tim Holtz DISTRESS STICKLES PICKET FENCE White Glitter Glue Ranger

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Jill K. Berry Stencils and Artistcellar

Hello everyone...it's the start of a new week and I'm raring to get back to work, took a little time away from creating art. Today I want to share a guest designer post that I was really honored to do over at Artiscellar. If you love stencils you have to go and see what there!

Hi everyone…Martha Richardson here. I’m thrilled to be a guest designer on the ArtistCellar blog today. I love using stencils in my mixed media work, love making my own backgrounds…just love the freedom stencils give. I was even more excited when I received Jill K. Berry’s Signature Series in Rivermap and Roadmap. I have been a fan of Jill’s since I received her fabulous book Personal Geographies: Explorations in Mixed-Media Mapmaking.

One technique that I often use is to create a STENCIL STUDY…I want to know how the stencils will look, react with paints, sprays and mists and how different papers will react. Let me show you my process and all the projects created from this stencil study.

First up is both Jill K. Berry stencils on a 6x6” square of Strathmore 140lb. watercolor paper using Dylusions Spray Inks. I thought that Roadmap would be the one I liked the most but I was pleasantly surprised to find the opposite to be true. From these papers I then went onto to create mini journal pages that will be collated into a journal at some point and several postcards that will be sent to Jane Davies postcard project. I have several of these mini journal pages created already from other stencil studies.

Below: Roadmap Stencil & Dylusions Ink Sprays in Dirty Martini, After Midnight & Calypso TealBelow: Roadmap stencil & Dylusions Ink Spray in Funky Fuchsia, Dirty Martini, After MidnightBelow: OOOPS! Oversprayed Dylusions Ink Spray...appears the watercolor paper REALLY soaks up the color. THE SAVE...Wendy Veechi Studio 490 Embossing Paste in black applied over the mistakes. SHHH...we won't tell anyone and they'll think I planned it that wayBelow: Rivermap stencil and Dylusions ink SpraysNext I tried the Rivermap stencil on Strathmore 140 lb. Mixed Media paper with a background wash of Dylusions Spray Inks {ink sprayed on baby wipe and then washed across surface} and stenciled with Distress Inks. Love the finished feel and look. I used this background to create a gift tag which will hold a gift card for a soon to be traveler.I again used the Rivermap stencil {see how much I liked this one} on a mop art journal page. As I’m creating the leftover paint, spray or mists get wiped onto a blank journal page so I’m always creating backgrounds in my journals. This background is in one of my Dylusions Creative Journals. The experiment this time was to see how the stencil reacted with Luminartes Silks Acrylic Glaze in Olive Vine and Bolivian Blue. Now I have created another layer on my page and added some beautiful shimmer and that same time. Is the background done? … nope! But it’s ready for another layer to be added.Finally some other random stencil studies created over random papers created with more random sprays, mists, or paints. I applied black acrylic paint over 2 of the papers and Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 Embossing Paste and both black and white over the stencils. Then using my Vagabond and various dies cut out different shapes that will be utilized in other projects down the road. I also applied black and white embossing paste over another background…really loves the effect. You can see the hearts used in the gift tag above

So to recap from my “stencil studies” I have created 2 mini journal pages, 3 postcards, 1 art journal background, 1 tag, random die cuts and a page that I’m undecided on. Am I finished with these stencils...no! They will added to my ever growing collection and with creating this stencil study I know have a visual aid that will help me when I go to find that perfect stencil to be added to a project.


Finally the winner from last weeks giveaway is:



carolMarch 31, 2013 at 7:18 PM

I would like to try them, I keep seeing people get great results with them! My favorite (because I only have two) is the one I cut myself, of some kind of pod-like flowers.

CAROL...Please contact me through my blog ;)

Thank you for joining me today. Maybe you will try a Stencil Study...if you do let me know what you think.

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Painted Doodles or How I Relax...

I do create everyday...something, even if it's only 15 min. It's one way I relax and at the same time quiet those inner thoughts of "do I have creative talent or not". I'm sure everyone can relate to that inner dialogue...this is a way for me to banish them...doodling & zentangles.  These are what I lovingly call EXPERIMENTS...new techniques, new product, new color...no pressure...no stress!

The 1st EXPERIMENT is this finished doodle. After the drawing was completed using Faber-Castell Artist Pitt Pens I painted the circles with Dylusions Spray Inks.  I have the ink sprays in the fabulous Tim Holtz Detail Water Brushes and they are perfect to paint with. I love the look of the dryed Dylusions...a very rich, matte look. With that in mind I pulled out my Luminarte Acrylic Silk Glazes and created the background, wanting the contrast of the different product finishes. I loved seeing how the different colors worked on 9x12" Strathmore Watercolor Paper, series 400. The backgrounds of each circle were also painted with the silks.

The more I looked at my finished EXPERIMENT I realized that I really loved the smaller circle and what looks like peacock feathers. That wasn't my intention but I do agree that it does. So onto the next EXPERIMENT. I enlarged that one circle, offset from center and created the same image. I wasn't sure about the background but when I saw this Marrakech stencil designed by Michelle Ward, Stencil Girl Products, I knew I had to use it...lately I have been drawn to anything using a quatrefoil shape as evidence in my work.

Painted with several colors of Dylusions Ink Spray

Background painted with Luminarte Acrylic Silks in Spiced Pumpkin

 The next question in my creative process was what colors to use for the background and whether I wanted just one of the 2 shapes painted of the background. I have this vision in my head...I don't think it is quite this but I will save that idea for another EXPERIMENT. The background was painted with African Jade and Olive Vine Acrylic Silks. I wish you could really see the contrast from the Dylusions & the Acrylic Silks...very dramatic. 

I'm not sure I am done...I will let it percolate in my mind's eye...again NO STRESS, NO PRESSURE...it is my EXPERIMENT!

Thanks for stopping by...what do you do for creative relaxation?