Creative Blast

GRASONVILLE, MD – Monday night – I can’t believe a week has gone by again and I’m just now posting last week’s Laugh & Craft updates!  If you saw the original post for these plaques, you’ll see that when Candace J. and Beth returned for last week’s Laugh & Craft, they had a fun week of embellishing, embellishing, embellishing!   Not satisfied with the simple stenciling and stamping technique that we shared at Laugh & Craft, they took their empowered statements home and blasted them with more creativity. We’ll see what they have in store for tomorrow’s Laugh & Craft! >>Hugs, Tiffany

Tuesday Laugh & Craft

GRASONVILLE, MD – Wednesday afternoon – Yesterday’s Laugh & Craft creative playtime was GREAT! Gail, Margie, Candace J & Beth are beaming over their stenciled plaques.

At the start of the creative playtime, I shared my designer secrets for perfect stencilling (it has something to do with cosmetic sponges) and everyone practiced the technique. The first step in creating these plaques is to base coat. Always, always, paint the back of your project. You wouldn’t believe how many rolling of the eyes that I get when I ask and sometimes plead with my creative playmates to paint the back of their projects. Really, it only takes a few minutes and what’s the first thing that most people do when they are presented with a present or are checking out your handiwork – they LOOK AT THE BACK or they TURN IT OVER. I don’t know why, but since they do, you always need to paint the back or bottoms of your project.

Next, pick your stencil. I like the stencils that have the thinnest material. I don’t know what millimeter measurement they are, but those that are the thinnest work the best. (FYI – it is usually the more expensive stencils that are the thinnest.)

On these projects where we included stamped letters, we first stamped the lettering onto blank paper and then cut around the word so that we could place it on our plaque to determine how we wanted to stencil around the lettering. Then after the stenciling, we came back in and stamped the letters (some were stamped with paint and some with ink.)

I know that there are fabulous stencil brushes that the finest of stencil artists use. When I am using stencil paint cremes (Delta Creative), I use a stencil brush BUT when I am stenciling fast and furiously with acrylic paints (Delta Creative or DecoArt) and know that I need great results every time, I use a cosmetic sponge. The key is to load the cosmetic sponge with a little paint and dab, dab, dab it on your paint palette to evenly distribute the paint and then dab, dab, dab it over your stencil. This is really hard to explain in writing so you’ll just need to stop by one of our free make-it and take it stenciling demos to learn in person!  We’ll see you soon at the Studio! PS. We have just added Laugh & Craft to our Wednesday nights so stopy by at 7 pm and join in the doy-it-yourself creative fun! >>Tiffany