Celebration Stencil Techniques Course

 The stencil course is all about finding ways to use your stencils in different ways and/or your cover dies as well. I tend to shy away from products that are messy because I dislike the "clean up" process. My craft space is outside of my home so I have to go inside to clean up anything that needs water.  I am lazy sometimes and put it off... then end up with a stencil or tool that is harder to clean than it should have been had I done it right away. 

So...on to the project.  I chose a cover die to use as a stencil for my project.  The Radial Butterflies Cover Die seems like a challenge for me because of its simplicity.  That statement probably seems odd but that's how it felt.  It's simple but almost too simple.  I was striving for some way to make it look more interesting and using it as a stencil for building up dimension is just what I needed.  

I cut two of the cover dies out of Nina solar white cardstock and adhered them together for more stability, knowing that the pastes would weaken the paper eventually. One of the photos shows pink but the reason behind that...I was going to ink blend with it as a stencil and switched to molding paste instead.  It was a better choice for me. :)  

I mixed a small amount of ink into the moulding paste but in the end I ended up ink blending the color over the paste along with heat embossing after.  I use the mini stamp Butterfly Kisses for the main image in the middle and heat embossed that with clear embossing powder.  I cut the sentiment from the Craft Your Life Project Kit:Watercolor Flowers and ink blended it a tad, added two more die cut sentiment pieces to the back with craft foam.  I added some craft foam on the back for a little lift and mounted the the base onto a color cardstock panel that matched the Cloudy Sky ink pretty perfectly.  

I made a second card using some crackle mousse, vellum, and gold mirrored cardstock.  I used the fine line circles die on it and I love them!  They add a neat little something to the mix.