Most of you already know there a million things you can use duct tape for.
3 reasons to use duct tape on your stencils.
We commonly refer to it as “Duck Tape,” which is actually a popular brand name of duct tape. I’m sure you’ve seen some of things people have made, from wallets to prom dresses. Today, we’re sticking with a crafty use. I recently noticed someone had used a pretty duck tape to edge her stencils. Brilliant! Having all the edges extend beyond the existing borders of the stencils was really helpful.
Duct tape edges give more space to cover the project beyond the stencil.
A stack of stencils slide more easily across each other.
There is more to hold on to as you clean your stencils.
We even soaked and cleaned stencils in a tub of water and the duct tape held up great! We were actually encouraged to use Duck brand duct tape, as it seems to actually work better for this purpose. I had envisioned using some wild prints and really jazzing up the edges, until I found out that the solid colors had TWICE as many yards as the prints, for the SAME PRICE. Yes, I started with a solid color! However, you can grab a coupon for your big box craft store and get started with some wild prints more economically. If you have some doubts, just do a few to get started.
A final tip, if there is info on the stencil you want to keep, just grab a permanent marker and write it on the tape.
Write any info about the stencil right on the tape with a permanent marker.
Today’s adventure is going to take us into a combination art journaling and memory keeping layout, where we’ll use some photos that are less than picture perfect.
One of my daughters enjoyed attending the St. Patrick’s Day festivities in St. Paul, Minnesota for a number of years, and I would end up with just some fun photos that I would either see on her phone, or maybe on social media. What better way to use imperfect photos than to combine them in an art journal style layout. When the only photo you have is less than perfect, it suddenly becomes the perfect photo!
My friend Joanna Grant has a number of vintage photos that she shares frequently, and I love them for use in mixed media. I printed several St. Patrick’s Day themed vintage greeting or postcards on my inkjet printer, using presentation paper. Presentation paper will usually give you a much better print to work with, without being as heavy or as expensive as photo paper. After printing and cutting the images, I used some Glue N’ Seal to adhere them to my pages in a mixed media journal, using a collage method; gluing over and under the image.
Vintage St. Patrick’s Day prints from inkjet printer applied to layout.
Then I applied some dylusions paint in fresh lime, and lemon zest. Not only did I cover the empty places on the page, but I began to paint over the images.
Apply paint to begin to pull page together and continue building the background.
Then, I applied some plain white tissue paper to a few places, just to give it a bit of texture, and to begin to tone down some of the color. You can see more on applying tissue paper in a previous post.
White tissue paper randomly applied for added texture.
Next, I used the edge of an old plastic gift card and began to add a bit of white gesso over the pages, to begin to tone down some of the background. At this point, it was going to overpower the photos!
Gesso applied to tone down some of the background.
What good Irish layout would be complete without more shamrocks? I went to Cricut.com’s Design Space and found a shamrock image to cut as stencil on my Cricut, then inked on a layer.
Another layer added using a stencil.
Random stenciling.
That looked a bit overpowering, so I added another bit of white gesso.
More gesso applied.
I decided to be done with the background, and added the photos I had printed on my inkjet printer. They, too, were printed on presentation paper. The “St Patrick’s Day” letters were also cut with Cricut. If you wanted to, you could use alpha stickers or hand letter. A squiggly border was drawn around each photo, using a thin marker and a thicker one. Space was left for more journaling. If you look closely, you can see there are even several green “diamonds” added for extra bling!
Photos added to the layout, with a wee bit of journaling.
It turned out messy and I had a great time creating the layout. I probably wouldn’t have normally used these photos, but they certainly embody the crazy times and outfits. Having taken the photo at the end, it looks like there are some places I may go back and work on a wee bit more… and that is the beauty of this kind of project. It’s done when I say it’s done.
What do you say? Do you want to get messy with me?
Have you ever wanted to create something for a gift and thought it was going to be easy, only to find it didn’t work out quite the way you envisioned? Today is the last day of school for kids in our district, and I thought I’d create a special gift for my grandson’s teacher. It all started with something I saw online. I wish I had an idea of whose work was my inspiration, because her items were gorgeous! She had used an electronic cutting machine and cut word art from vinyl and placed it on wood she had painted black. This description just isn’t going to do her work justice, so I’ll just stop now!
Everyone raved about how personal and appreciative a teacher would be with a gift of this nature. I decided I would make do with things I had on hand. So my plan was:
Paint a 12×12″ canvas black
Cut a word art file to use as a stencil
Paint the word art in white
Simple, right? That was the idea.
After I had envisioned how great this would be, I went down and grabbed out a 12×12 canvas, and was thinking how great it was that I had everything I needed right in my craft room. I reach for one of my new tubes of heavy body acrylic paint so that I can quickly get a good coat of paint on my background. There is no black! Seriously? I looked around to find another black, and decide it’s worth a 2 mile trip to go get the paint I want. I got to the craft store and found the paint I wanted was sale! Score! I walked out with one tube of paint and a package of sawtooth picture hangers to use on the project.
Back at home, I quickly covered the canvas with the paint. It went on like a dream, covering easily. At that point I decided it was too hot in my craft room and had to move the fan, because I needed the outlet to plug in my Cameo electronic cutter. While looking for a plug on the other side of the room, I leaned over the table, supporting myself with my hand on top of….. wait for it…. my freshly painted canvas! (Now if I would have thought fast enough, I could have made a handprint on something to use later.) Baby wipes are standard issue in my craft area, and I cleaned up nicely and hurried to fix my canvas. Whew, crisis averted.
I started my cut file and cut out of a 12×12″ sheet of card stock. Thank goodness for scrapbooking and having plenty of card stock! Oh it was beautiful when it was cut! I carefully worked and worked to remove the letters so that I would end up with a stencil. As I began looking at it, I realized that letters like A, R, P, 0, etc. needed to have little parts added back in so that the whole letter wasn’t just a solid blob of white when it was painted. Great, now how was I going to get those to just lay there and be able to stencil? Aha, I decided to use a glue pen that if I let dry first, it would make them removable, like a sticky note! I glued tiny parts of those letters and let them dry.
Finally, I was ready to start painting the stencil using heavy body acrylic to keep oozing at bay. I put it on top of the canvas, and then painstakingly inserted the little sections of the insides of the letters. I began gently dabbing in the white paint so that it wouldn’t ooze under the stencil. Some of the insides of the letters came up with pouncing my brush. Okay, I could use black paint and go back in and create the middles of letters. As I continued, I was very careful about keeping those little critters down.
The moment of truth came as I gently pulled up the stencil. Oh no! It was a mess. With all the care I had given to gently tapping in my color, it still was a mess around almost every letter. I just looked at it in disappointment. On the bright side, the white paint over the black looked like I wanted it, not took opaque. That way it had a bit of the current “chalkboard” look to the lettering. Not to be deterred from this great plan for a gift, I persevered.
Next I took out a tiny little brush and I went around every stinkin’ letter with black paint to clean up the edges! Project saved.
Even though things didn’t work out like I had anticipated, I didn’t give up! I’m glad I didn’t, because in the end, it is a perfectly imperfect piece!
I bet you have a great “How I Saved My Project” story or two, and good for you! If you are the kind of person whose projects go off without any problems, hats off to you! Otherwise feel free to share a story with us! I’m sure I’m not alone with my clumsy crafting!
One of my daughters enjoyed attending the St. Patrick’s Day festivities in St. Paul, Minnesota for a number of years, and I would end up with just some fun photos that I would either see on her phone, or maybe on social media. What better way to use imperfect photos than to combine them in an art journal style layout. When the only photo you have is less than perfect, it suddenly becomes the perfect photo!
