Woodware Father's Day Gifts All Tied Up

Once again, Woodware has me hopping. This week, we have been challenged to create a gift for Father's Day. As with Mother's Day, this happy day falls earlier in the year in the UK than in the US, so I was unprepared. However, I have step by step directions to demonstrate that you, too, can be on time for this prestigious occasion. All you need are a cheap cotton tie from Primark (try Wal-Mart in the USA), and the supplies shown below: 

Dreamweaver Cathedral Window, Electric Guitar, Guitar Words, Clearsnap Mixed Media Ink, Sakura Micron Pen

Tape down guitar stencil. Tap red ink through stencil using stencil brush until saturated. Remove stencil and apply heat tool to set ink.

Tape down Cathedral Window over tie, and ink stencil with white ink over background area only. Heat set as above.

Place guitar stencil over design again, and trace outline with Micron Pen.

Ink stencil the selected guitar words randomly over tie. Heat set once again.

See??? Wasn't that simple? And you KNOW that Dad will be off to the offices on Monday, proudly displaying his one-of-a-kind, hand-made-with-love tie to all those jealous barristers! No, you say??? Okay, well maybe just around the house watching aging rock gods on the telly.

Need more Father's Day inspiration? Check the Woodware blog daily all this week!

Dreamweaver's Flora and Fauna Challenge Goes Under the Sea

Welcome to the merry month of May! The Dream Team are challenging you this month to a "Flora and Fauna" theme! Considering most of the Dreamweaver designs incorporate both of these in the huge variety of stencils, you should have no problem playing along with our challenge this month! As usual, link your creations at the end of the Dream It Up! blog post, or at the end of our posts where it says, "Add Your Link".

My flora and fauna are going under the sea this week...

I created a beautiful inked background using Memories Mists on glossy cardstock with a bit of water spray for movement. The Open Fish design was traced with Sakura Micron pens in .01 and .05, with "Sten-tangling" added, before covering the fish in Glossy Accents and tiny, clear holeless beads. The tiny beads add to the watery effect. Using portions of the Leafless Tree Die in black cardstock as coral, and some soft ink-stenciling of its matching stencil design, I was able to create dimension as well. One of my favorite parts of this design is that the beads cover a multitude of errors in my "Sten-tangling", so no one needs to know that my lines were less than perfect...unless YOU tell them!

For the love of flora and fauna, visit the rest of the "A" team this week, and leave some sweet comments:

Dream It Up!

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

An InLinkz Link-up

Woodware's Sketch Challenge #34: Keeping It Not-So-Simple!

Ever have a challenge in your life that you are determined to make more of a challenge than necessary? Well...that was me this week! See the very simple sketch from Woodware to the left. Could I just leave it simple? Noooooo. I just had to let my mind wander off on a more creative tangent. The end result is cute, and really wouldn't take anyone else any amount of time to create, but for some reason I had to remake it three times!

I started with a basic yellow card, which I stenciled the Dreamweaver Leopard Spots with ink. I did the letterpress technique with the Baby Bib stencil...inking the stencil with ColorBox Chalk ink in Ice Jade, and running it through my embossing machine with a panel of aqua cardstock to emboss and transfer the ink. Here is where I started to ramp things up...

The bib needs yellow of course! So I ink-stenciled yellow ink over the cute giraffe design, and embossed it in Pastel Yellow Embossing Enamel from Stampendous. Then the sentiment die cut had to be embossed in the yellow as well, with the Woodware Clear Baby Shower.

Then...hmmmm...wouldn't it be cool to turn the card into a pocket
for a slider invite? Oh, and the bib, could be the pull tab for the slider! So...remake the card into a pocket...three times, due to off measurements, messy stenciling, and....a....general pickiness. Know what I mean?

The slider needed some color, so I used the two previous inks to create a plaid by ink-stenciling the Stripes stencil in opposite directions. Another Woodware Clear Words (Welcome Baby) was stamped to be hidden under the bib. The bib was cut out and attached with one brad, so that it could swivel around and display the party info. Since I

don't seem to have an invite stamp or stencil at this time, I have an additional picture here of how it could be done...hand-made, or computer generated.

A ribbon bow and tiny yellow safety pins embellished the invite, and finally,  I was done. I think the end result was worth the extra effort, but keeping this sketch CAS would have worked just as well! Maybe next time????

Don't forget to check out the rest of the crew's creations this week, and play along with the sketch challenge this month for a chance to win a great prize. All the info can be found on the Woodware blog.

Woodware UK: A Manly Mad Hatter

The Woodware girls are following a Retailer's Challenge once again...this time with The Stamp Pad in Greenfield, Saddleworth, Lancashire in the UK. Gwen from the Stamp Pad has suggested a Mad Hatters theme. Now, I know that no one in the USA can top what the UK does with hats, so I'm taking this challenge a bit more "Yank", with an Indiana Jones twist on it.

Keeping it vintage, I've ink-stenciled the background with the Dreamweaver Leopard Spots stencil and Light Brown ink. Over the top, I've added the Stampendous Vintage World Map in Dark Brown ink. Then I've added some elements from the Stampendous Perfectly Clear Air Travel set over a torn piece of cork, as well as the card base. My encouraging sentiment was stamped in black using the Stampendous Perfectly Clear Typewriter Alphabet set. And...finally...we get to the hat! The hat is one of three hats on the Dreamweaver Hats stencil, which I ink-stenciled, colored the band, crumpled and distressed, and cut out, to layer over a coiled "whip" created from a section of black leather cord.

For those of you that would love to play along with the challenge, the details can be found on The Stamp Pad blog, as well as their Facebook Page. "Like" them and follow along for more fun and inspiration!

Dreamweaver Stencils: More Fun with Flora and Fauna

Welcome to the merry month of May! The Dream Team are challenging you this month to a "Flora and Fauna" theme! Considering most of the Dreamweaver designs incorporate both of these in the huge variety of stencils, you should have no problem playing along with our challenge this month! As usual, link your creations at the end of the Dream It Up! blog post, or at the end of our posts where it says, "Add Your Link". As the challenge gets underway, you'll see thumbnails of others who are playing along as inspirations for your own creations!

Here is my creation for this week:

Nothing floral about this card, and I'm not sure that this cat qualifies as "fauna". He may be just too cool for that! The Retro Standing Cat has been paste-embossed in Glossy Black on brown cardstock and cut out to be popped up above a very jazzy background. The left panel is black on black with the Pop Squares stencil in Glossy Black again...as was the Guitar and the banner from the Cat Words stencils. The Guitar had been pasted on a panel with a music score printed on it, and I added shading with my Copic markers. The colors are more masculine, which would make this a great Father's Day, graduation card, or birthday card for a musician, or just someone who really loves music...and cats...cool cats.

Please welcome our new "B" team, officially posting for the first time!

Dream It Up!

Lyn Bernatovich

Louise Healy

Alison Heikkila

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Hornschu

Kristi Parker Van Doren 

Gill Wilson

An InLinkz Link-up

Woodware UK: Breaking Out the Brayers!

When was the last time your reached for your brayer? Personally, it's been a while for me. The Woodware team were challenged this week to create with a brayer, so I decided to go with the Dreamweaver Joseph's Coat technique for my project. Here's the process:

1. Use brayer to roll on ink from Kaleidacolor ink pad over white cardstock panel.
2. Place selected stencil (Dreamweaver Open Fish) over panel, tape sides, apply Dreamweaver Translucent Embossing Paste over the design, and let dry.
3. Once dry, sponge/daub/brayer black dye ink over surface to cover thoroughly.
4. Place clean stencil over top of design again, and use slightly damp cotton or paper toweling to remove the black ink from the surface of the design, revealing the bright color underneath.

Note: In the case of this card, I used Onyx Versafine as my black ink on top. Because it is a "hybrid" ink, it didn't dry as thoroughly as I would have liked, so I covered the panel with Stampendous Clear Embossing Powder and heated it. The end result was a black and shiny surface, and a bit of a mottled appearance on the fish...which is actually pretty cool.

The background of the card was the Dreamweaver Waves and Dots stencil. I daubed Versamark ink through the design, embossed with clear embossing powder, and brayered my Kaleidacolor over the embossed surface. This acted as a resist, leaving the design white against the fun color. I had also brayered onto plain white cardstock, so I used this as a backdrop for the Stampendous Cling Breathe sentiment, stamped in black.

The "coral" on the side? A portion of the Dreamweaver Leafless Tree die! I love multi-taskers!

Dreamweaver Stencils: Flora and Fauna Fun

Welcome to the merry month of May! The Dream Team are challenging you this month to a "Flora and Fauna" theme! Considering most of the Dreamweaver designs incorporate both of these in the huge variety of stencils, you should have no problem playing along with our challenge this month! As usual, link your creations at the end of the Dream It Up! blog post, or at the end of our posts where it says, "Add Your Link". As the challenge gets underway, you'll see thumbnails of others who are playing along as inspirations for your own creations! Speaking of inspirations...the month of April was our Inspirations month, and we had so many that linked with us! So exciting! Our randomly chosen winner for April is...JULIE STAVES! Check out two of her creations...

Congrats, Julie! Be sure to email lynell@dreamweaverstencils.com with your choice of stencil, and your address!

Here is my creation for this week:

Another one of my fabulous finds on clearance at Home Goods...this herb garden box, which was plain, had soil to use, and someone had been "light-fingered" with the seed packets, so it had been marked down to $4.00. Score!!!!

I used my Tsukineko Splendor Circus inkpad as my palette to ink-stencil the Wheat, Hexagons, and Rooster Weather-vane over the box. I deliberately kept it weathered and worn looking. I heat set the ink with my handy-dandy Milwaukee tool, before spraying a clear Krylon Finish over the surface, and on the inside.

The soil packets came in thin plastic liners for the pots to protect the wood, so I inserted my herb plants (pre-grown from Lowe's) into their respected areas before adding their cute stakes. These were made with the wood tongue depressor-style sticks from Jo-Ann's, along with precut wood plaques. I painted these with a couple of coats of chalkboard paint, and ink-stenciled in StazOn White ink the names using the Dreamweaver alphabet.

I've really been enjoying taking the opportunity to craft on objects other than just cards. I hope you'll look at your paper-crafting supplies with this same thought in mind. If you ever have questions, feel free to email me at phornschu@yahoo.com.

Please welcome our new "A" team, officially posting for the first time!

Dream It Up!

Leadonna Kimmel

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

An InLinkz Link-up