Another Stenciled Christmas Memory

Today's post first appeared here in December 2013 ...

Altho this easy technique works for birthday cards, here I've focused on Christmas cards. 

First, I got out some papers and blank greeting cards...

... starting with the above scrap of leftover metallic paper that I'd previously stamped with alcohol inks.

Next, I placed stencils over the papers and masking taped them down:

Then I used a cosmetic applicator sponge with heavy body acrylic paint to start pouncing on the color:

Clicking on the above image to enlarge it, you can see that I've masked off the right half of this vertical "swish-and-swirl" pattern.  Here I am printing directly onto a greeting card cover.  I moved the stencil progressively to the left, applying paint each time, to end up with 3 candles in a horizontal row across the card face.  The final card is shown at the start of this post -- the card with the green background, centered in the second-from-top photo.

On the upper right in this second picture, you can see where I used a piece of newspaper to pounce excess paint off the applicator before bringing the applicator to the stencil.  This prevents the paint from running under the stencil, which causes problems if you want crisp details in your final prints.

Next, I carefully peeled off the stencils, to reveal the prints:

Then I cut apart the "candles" -- easy to do since these stencils have built-in "guidelines."

The final products are at the top of this post:  The candles have been either collaged, or printed directly, onto greeting card covers, along with flames that I've free-hand cut from assorted papers.

The stencils I used were my 9" X 12" Wrought Iron Gate 
and my 9"X12" Borders 1 and Borders 2 stencils.

I'm happy to say that I've designed 70 stencils for StencilGirl.  The multiple pages of my stencils start here.

Thanks for visiting my blog today!