stamps, stencils and masks

This month's challenge theme, over at Art to the 5th, is 'stamps, stencils and masks' and this week's art challenge is to use stencils - made or bought.

I have tonnes of stencils, and love using them, so decided to cut some of my own for this project using stencil card from Hobbycraft.  I started by cutting out a leaf - which ended up as a mask rather than a stencil ...

...and then I didn't end up using it!!  Suspect there will be a 'mask' week sometime this month though so I'll likely use it then.

I took one of my plain pink gelli prints from last weekend and added Dina Wakley acrylic paints over the top with a baby wipe...

..and once that was dry, added some stamping using a circle stamp, and background script stamp from Lavinia Stamps with Eggplant Adirondack ink.

I cut out a simple heart stencil and sponged white paint through before adding a stamped flower (made using funky foam - sooooo easy to cut out!!)

I also cut out some tiny round rectangles in funky foam and stamped with these on my page using black ink.  There's some additional stamping on there too, along with pencil marks, some music paper and some gold paint.

I wasn't keen on my flower last night, and realised that I like layers on my pages rather than single (ish) pages.  I was going to stamp the flower out again onto music paper, cut it out and stitch it to the page but I had another look this morning and decided I like it after all!

Well, enough to live with it anyway!!  :)

a teeny weeny gelli plate

For this month's project for Lavinia Stamps  I used the teeny weeny gelli plate that I treated myself to recently!  It measures 3" x 5" inches and is perfect for creating quick and easy cards.  Step by step instructions are over on the Lavinia Stamps website here.

It's also great for small projects like tags.  I enjoyed playing so much I carried on from cards onto a tag; and I have a new favourite stamp - the new flower border!  I just love it :)

new Lavinia Stamps release

 I've been playing with the new release images from Lavinia Stamps.

I love, love, love the new background script, especially in combination with the new flower border.

I made some tags for some of my Easter gifts using both of these images.  I spritzed each tag with water then pressed my mini distress mustard seed inkpad over the wet area.  Once this was dry I added snippets of background script in ripe persimmon and used this same colour to add sections of the flower border.

A touch of washi tape and a blue heart cut from previously inked paper finished my tags.

I had a couple of letters to send out so I used the same stamps with a black Versafine inkpad - can you tell I love this combo?!!!