This week's
challenge for the
Woodware team strained my brain a bit, and I'm not
sure why. We've all been working with the
Canvas Cloth, an awesome
product...perfect for painting, stamping, stenciling, and stitching on.
All week I've been watching the rest of the team's posts, waiting for
some inspiration to hit. I've had the
cloth sitting on my island in the
middle of my studio as a constant reminder while I've had ideas stewing
in my head. Finally, this morning, the light bulb went on! A holiday door
hanging! Perfect. And no sewing necessary, which is a good thing as my
sewing machine is in dire need of being cleaned, oiled, and adjusted
from lack of use.
I decided that I would use one of
Woodware's wood dowels (which I covered in red ink and
clear embossing powder, and
then dipped the ends into
Stampendous Aged Gold Embossing Enamel for
more pizazz.) The length of the
dowel is 6 inches (15 cm), which meant that my
canvas needed to be 5 inches in width. I chose the
Dreamweaver stencils
that I wanted to use (
Holiday Greetings,
Holly Flourish,
Christmas Borderss) and laid them out for measuring space of design. I added a few
extra inches in length to create the banner effect that I wanted.
I
wanted to have the look of cross stitch, without the work (duh!), so I
pulled out my handy
Dreamweaver Screen, taped it down on the canvas, and
using a
large stencil brush, added an antique-y looking color
(
Clearsnap Mixed Media ink in Vintage) over the entire panel, moving the
screen as necessary. Then I placed the
Holiday Greetings stencil as
desired, taped it down over the top of the
screen, and started adding
the color to the leaves and berries (
Mixed Media Schoolhouse Red and Mossy Green, with a bit of Leather Brown). You notice that the berries
are tiny, and fairly close to the leaves. This makes it tricky...unless
of course you have in your possession the awesome
Picasso tool from
Dreamweaver. It looks a bit odd in shape, with sharp corners and rounded
scallops, and inside little open lines and several sizes of circles.
The purpose is to use this to mask off where you don't want ink, while
you add the ink that you do want. For instance, on the berries, just
place the appropriate circle size over the berry, ink your
smallest stencil brush, and rouge the color into that space, and move onto the
next. Easy!
Following
the same process, I completed the
Holly Flourish design at the top
and bottom of the panel, as well as one section of the
Christmas Borders. I
used that
large brush again to add more
ink-distressing around the
edges and over the canvas. Now I was ready for the finishing touches!
This
hanging would really be a lovely gift or craft sale item, and is easy
enough to do in multiples. Handmade is heartmade, after all!
The frame was one of those cheap $1 frames from Michaels which I gave one coat of black acrylic paint,
