Masking with Die cuts and Stencils: Friend You are Awesome

Hi Everyone!

Welcome back to my blog. Thank you so much for spending some of your day with me, I do so appreciate it! I have one more cross-stitch card to share with you; but I haven’t photographed it yet, so we’ll take a break from those for a couple of days and move on to some other cards I’ve been working on. Sometimes, I scroll through Pinterest or Instagram and I see all the manufacturers in the industry promoting their new sales and new releases and I ooh and aah and start immediately planning in my head all the “really cool things” I could do with all “that new stuff” Then, I pause a moment and look around at my desk and my bookcase where I store the majority of my items and I think to myself, “look at all this stuff you already have, Dori. Why not take a look through and see what you haven’t used or think of techniques you haven’t done in a while?” So, that’s what I did! And way in the back of a container I have, I rediscovered my stencils! I haven’t done anything with those in SUCH a long time. So, I scoured Pinterest and You Tube for some inspiration and went to work!
The card I’m sharing today started with a white card base, top folded. I cut a Pendant Nestablities die cut from Spellbinders and then used the negative piece of the mask to put over my white card card front, so only shape of the die cut was in the center. I then took my Martha Steward stippling brushes and brushed on a light blending layer of Cracked Pistachio, Faded Jean and Dusty Concord Distress Inks (yes, just the regular ones)

After that, I took my Swirls Stencil by Hero Arts and carefully laid it over the front of the card, positioning the areas I wanted over the die cut piece in the center. I secured it with some purple tape (which is a new purchase and fabulous!) and then took my ink blending tools and layered on a heavier coat of the same colors of ink over the stencil I pulled the stencil away, removed the mask
negative and viola! I had a very cool die cut center on my card.
For the “Friend” in the center, I took some of my old Quikutz dies and cut the letters individually. Each letter, 4 times in white and once in black. Yes, it took a long time...no, I didn’t mind. I stacked the letters and adhered them all together; and then placed them across the center of the die cut. I used a T square ruler to try to get it all straight and centered; but I think I still managed to get it a little crooked somehow!  The simple sentiment “you are awesome “ is from Altenew’s “You are” set that I’ve been reaching for a lot lately. Finally , I added some small clear sequins and some little white paint dots to the stencil background for a little pizazz! For the final touch I ran the edges of the card along my cracked pistachio ink pad just to bring a little more definition to the edges of the white card.

Phew! are you exhausted from reading all that! I think it took me longer to type out all the steps the card took than it did to actually make the card! If you haven’t tried this technique, I encourage you to give it a whirl, it’s a lot fun and really easy to get great backgrounds. Have a great day and I’ll see you all again soon!

Challenges:

1. Crafting by Design: Anything Goes (2nd Entry)
2. Crafty Creations: Anything Goes
3. Creative Moments: Anything Goes
4. Simon Says Stamp: CAS