Playing with Stencils at escape2create Retreat

Hello again!

While I was at the escape2create retreat last weekend, I had a bit of a play with some cool stencils. I really liked this one - it's a Crafter's Workshop stencil called Parasols.

Apart from the fact that I love the design of this, I also love the fact that when I did different things with the stencil, the image actually seemed to change. Instead of parasols I saw fireworks, tractor wheels, citrus segments and flowers. Cool!

It's easy to play with stencils and make cards at the same time. Just cut up some white cardstock to the right size to cover card bases and started experimenting! Once you have created a background with the stencils, just grab whatever products are nearby and create simple cards with them.

Here are two of the cards I came up with:

Yep- they're the same stencil. On the 'Let Your Light Shine' card, I rubbed Gelatos through the stencil with my finger. Some of the sections are quite small so you have to get in there with your pinkie. I chose pastel colours but I could also have gone bright and bold on this and it would have worked just as well. Don't you think the parasols now look like fireworks?

For the 'Hello Friend' card, I first sprayed Heidi Swapp Color Shine through the stencil (to make another card background) then flipped the stencil over and gently pressed it onto a new piece of cardstock. A brayer is ideal for this job, but I didn't have one at the retreat so I just used a bottle of glue to gently roll over the stencil. The parasols now looked like grungy cogs so I made this into a masculine card.

I had planned to make a lot more cards but there was too much laughing, chatting and good times happening to actually let me get much work done! I'm not complaining at all though!

Here are some of the other backgrounds I made using different techniques but all with the same stencil:

And lastly - here are a few pics from the retreat. What a weekend it was!

 Happy scrappin'!

Heather