StencilGirl and USArtQuest

StencilGirl and USArtQuest

where to start....where to start....

Minding my own business working at the StencilGirl booth with John Shaw I looked up to notice that the rest of our team was missing....Odd--where did they all go??

I look around the room and see Janet, Mary Beth and Carolyn frantically waving their hands at me to come over to the other side of the room to the USArtQuest booth. Yes...that is where it all started.....for me :)

You can get Carolyn's version in THIS post.

I can't really explain the rest. Let us just say that the StencilGirl Team is PASSIONATE...passionate about stencils, yes...but put more art supplies in front of us and oh my!!

I don't think Susan Pickering Rothemel really knew what to think of all of us, LOL!

Insert vision of Janet jumping up and down when Susan showed her how to do a technique.

By the time we left Susan had filled our hands with product to play with and sent us on our way. WOW! Thank you Susan! Yes, I am a product driven girl! Possibilities GALORE!

Susan was also nice enough to give us each a copy of her DVD so we could get familiar with her products. You can find it on her website.

I'm thinking you may have come here for a technique or inspiration, so let's get started! Now I could do one of the techniques on Susan's DVD, but...instead I decided to "experiment" since I hadn't played with any of these products before.

Let's start with a tip:

Pretty literally I started with a blank canvas....a 8.5" x 8.5" to be exact. It started to fray as soon as I cut it so I thought....hummm, PPA Adhesive I've never used that before...I'm thinking it just may work. It DID!!!! No fray here!

Let's start with a stencil of course! I chose my Doodle It Layered Petals because I wanted something with large openings. I traced the stencil with a regular pencil onto the canvas and then cut out the negative parts of the stencil making sure to leave it still attached by the outside edge. TIP: cut slits in each "hole" to make removing the parts easier. This really isn't as hard as you might think.

My idea was to work with the Dicrofibers so that they showed thru the cut out holes of the stencil. These are just beautiful and quite amazing the way they fuse together to make an actual material. They do tend to fly around a little (insert story of a son that wasn't too happy with me and how somehow they ended up in our dinner that night. What's a little sparky goodness in your food????!

 I did follow Susan's directions on this one.....

they come right on the package so no worries!

Now that I had my fiber "sheet" made I used the PPA Adhesive to adhere it to the canvas. I added glue to the back side of the my cut out canvas and attached the entire sheet over it. The final picture below shows what it looked like when done.

What should I play with next......how about those little balls of awesome color!

Prills (these were my favorite product I played with).

I again added the PPA to the canvas, this time on the good side and aded the Prills. 

I walked away and let it dry overnight (not one of my strong suits).

Enter the morning.....

STOP! I love the Prills, but I hate my project!!!!!

Oh NO! The ugly stage :( 

I literally sat there for 10 minutes and stared at it.....I knew what to do. I always do....it a little voice in my head that comes up--do this! I have learned over the years to just go with it. Heck, it is only "stuff" there is more where that came from.

What did I hate?? The middle!

TOO MUCH! CUT IT OUT!

So that I did! Just that made me instantly happy and I new I was out of the uglies!

Great Tape....I "think" Susan affectionately called it Buger Tape...either that or I'm dreaming. I used it to adhere a piece of felted wool to the back of the canvas to be the new middle. This stuff is sticky and wonderful!!!!

Almost done...just a few finishing touches.

I needed a word....of course :)

I wanted "be".....just be and it will come. I used the Vintage Typewriter stencil to make the word myself. This stencil comes in handy to me ALL the time! A few extra prills in the middle (because I was in LOVE with this color and had to use them) and then some simple stitching to bring all the colors together.

Thanks Susan! I had so much fun playing with these new to me products and am always thrilled to find a new way to use my StencilGirl stencils!

Did you see what Janet made today using the 

USArtQuest supplies and StencilGirl stencils? 

Hop on over to her Blog to see!!!!