GARDEN MONTAGE -- My Newest Stencil is Released Today!

Today a new 9" x 12" stencil of mine is released at StencilGirl!

You can find it as the very first stencil shown here.

I surprised myself with how much fun I had using Garden Montage  stencil to make prints on an assortment of background papers ...

I had even more fun when I cut the prints into pieces to collage together on greeting cards --

Please click on the image above as well as the image below, to better see details.

But I wasn't done yet!

After making the greeting cards shown above -- all of them embellished with wooden hearts that I had decorated eons ago -- I decided that I wanted to create a new batch of heart-embellishments, this time with these newly printed papers.

I started with the unfinished wooden hearts shown below, along with a collection of stencil-printed papers; most of these papers were the new prints created with Garden Montage.  Many of these prints had already been cut into small pieces as I'd assembled the collaged greeting cards.  These assorted-size wooden hearts are available at craft stores like Michael's and A.C. Moore.  Similar hearts are sold by a variety of vendors thru AmazonSmile, but as far as I can tell, none of these online sources offers the thinnest hearts, which are best for greeting card covers.  The hearts I had bought at A.C. Moore or Michaels are about 1/16 inch thick.

Above:  assorted stencil-printed papers and some unfinished wooden hearts.

Above:  Here I'm pairing a heart with a stencil-printed paper scrap that fits it. 

Above:  adding glue to the back of the paper scrap. I use Pioneer Embellishment Glue Stick.

Above: Here I've pressed the wooden heart down onto the glued side of the paper.

Above:  assorted sizes of wooden hearts are pressed to glued backs of paper scraps.

Above and below:  Two ways to trim the edges, after the glue has had time to dry; above:  a cutting board and an Exacto knife; below, fine-detail-cutting scissors.

Above:  I used an emery board to smooth the trimmed edges.

Above:  an assortment of ready-to-use heart embellishments.

Although today's art samples happen to be greeting cards, these hearts (and these collages) also work beautifully on covers of art journals, scrapbook pages, gift-tags, bookmarks, etc. I'm sure you can come up with more and better decorating ideas of your own!

To scroll thru the pages of my StencilGirl stencils, please start here.

Thanks for visiting my blog today!  Tomorrow's post will feature some of the greeting cards embellished with hearts created for today's post.

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