Stencil-Print Your Trick-or-Treat Handout Bags!

With blank giftbags, you can quickly decorate them with stencils and masks, for handing out to trick-or-theaters.

And for that art-making, you may want to use masks or stencils like these:

Cats s183 (6" x 6")

ATC Mixup Swatton # 1 L768 (9" x 12") -- featuring 9 Artist Trading Card-sized stencils and 3 bonus masks

Heron Stencil s175 (6" x 6")

Webbed Medallion s522 (6" x 6")

I haven't decorated any giftbags with Halloween themes, nor have I had the courage to print directly onto the giftbags!

But -- with my other masks and stencils -- I've made prints on assorted papers.  After the acrylic paints have dried, I've cut them out with Fiskars decorative scissors before using a glue stick to add them to all-occasion giftbags:

Above:  Made on foreign newsprint with 6" x 6" Garden at Nemours Mask.

Above:  Printed on "catch-all paper" using 9" x 12" stencil Thistle and 6" x 6" stencil Small Thistles.

Above: Made with 6" x 6" stencil Pressed Leaves and molding paste; after the paste had dried, I brushed over it lightly with Pan Pastel.

Above:  Top layer printed with 6" x 6" stencil Mikki's Flowers s604 and underneath layer printed using 9" x 12" Blooming Where Planted L449. The substrate is  holographic giftwrap paper and some of its glittery look remains visible.

Above:  Made with 6" x 6" Quilted Flower Garden; the substrate is "catch-all paper."

Above:  Made with 6" x 6" Garden at Nemours Mask.

Above:  Bottom layer was printed using 6" x 6" Ornamental Iron Curls s462.  Top layer was printed with interference red paint on black background using Artist Trading Card-sized Ornamental Iron Curls, one of 9 stencils (with additional bonus masks) that are included in 9" x 12" ATC Mixup Swatton # 2 L769 .

Above: After hitting the bag with blue spray paint, I added a green and blue print made on white paper using 6" x 6" LOVE s828.

Above:  9" x 12" Looking Up Through Trees L753 was used to print this design onto "catch-all" paper (paper that "catches" leftover paints when the leftovers are of small quantities -- to avoid letting leftover acrylic paints be sent down the drain with the brush-cleaning water.)

Above:  This giftbag was decorated with a heart cut from a print made using 6" x 6" Trivet B s167

Above:  Background print was made using 4" x 4" M & Y M267 and 4" x 4" R & E m268 .  Foreground print was made with 6" x 6" Heron s175.

Most of the above photos were taken before I got the idea to dress them up using these.  These stickers are easy to use, as-is -- or customized with scissors or a paper cutter.  The customizing that I generally do is to cut these decorative self-stick beauties into halves, lengthwise.  They go a lot farther that way; besides, there are times when the original sticker strips are too wide, so cutting them into halves gives me the exact width that I want. 

Thanks for visiting my blog today!  To scroll thru the pages of my StencilGirl stencils and masks, please start here.

Asemic Writing

"Take inspiration and put your unique twist on it," writes Evy F. Looring.  

My hope is to tickle your imagination with techniques and photos.  My blog posts have the goal of putting raw material out there.  Make from it what you will! 

StencilGirl StencilClub member Lisa Dobry gets all the credit for having encouraged me to try what I call calligraphic scribbling -- but she does it much better than I do.  Asemic writing is the real title for this kind of linework, which can be meaningless -- or can have actual (but often disguised) meaning.

At times in my life I've had strong feelings that demanded to be written out, and asemic writing has filled this need in a powerful way.  Everything I've written has actual meaning, but because I've crammed all letters together and overwritten many, the actual content remains only my own.

To my mind, asemic writing pairs perfectly with today's two featured masks; everything here comes down to the English alphabet.

M and Y m267 may at first appear a strange title for this 4" x 4" mini-mask, but moving over the design, the eye can find that it's an abstraction of the letters M and Y....

M and Y m267 (Hint:  to buy this mask, either use my link given here, at the far left, or do a StencilGirlProducts.com search using its number, m267.  Otherwise you may never find it!)

Likewise, as the eye travels across the 4" x 4" mini-mask below, the letters R and E rise from their abstracted versions.

R and E m268 (To buy this mask, either click on this link to the left, or search at StencilGirlProducts.com using the number m268. Otherwise you may never find it!)

I've used both these mini-masks in developing the next images coming up.  

 

Above:  A Sharpie white painting pen was used for the asemic writing.

In creating these pieces directly above and directly below, I used the masks at times to make prints atop the areas of writing.  Other times, the masks' imprints established background areas that I wrote over.  In the art sample below, do you notice how m268's prints resemble puzzle pieces?  Entirely unintended; but I like it.

Above:  A Sharpie white painting pen was used for the asemic writing.

M268 (R and E) was the mask I chose in making the piece below --

Above:  A Sharpie white painting pen was used for the asemic writing.

  

To scroll thru the pages of my StencilGirl stencils and masks, please start here.  Thanks for visiting here today!   

My stencil Swaying Grasses s276, inspired by the autumn season, has helped me develop ideas for greeting card covers, art journal pages, etc.  The first art sample below started with a round handmade stencil that seemed just the right size for filling with pale yellow heavy-body acrylic paint -- and voila!  It created a heavy moon hanging in the background.

Above: The background is a 6" x 6" greeting card blank from JAMPaper.com.  

Above:  A print made with 6" x 6" stencil Swaying Grasses s276 on an old encyclopedia page that has botanical illustrations.  Heavy-body orange acrylic paint was the medium used.

Above:  The original background was scrapbooking paper.  My first step was to use a handmade circular stencil with indigo heavy-body acrylic paint in creating a large circular backdrop.  While that paint was still wet, I added a print with Swaying Grasses s276 by using a narrow stylus to trace around the stencil openings; I had to work fast to scrape out the lines before the indigo paint dried.  The top-layer print was made using part of my 9" x 12" stencil Queen Anne's Lace L229.

Below: This multi-layer print was created using a circular 8-inch Gelli Plate.  Before using Swaying Grasses s276, I made a lighter print using hand-cut vine-and-leaf masks. (These homemade vine-and-leaf designs were the original inspiration for my 9" x 12" stencil Boxed Vines L247.) 

 Above:  The same 8-inch Gelli Plate was used in making this multi-layer print.  The bottom-layer print (faint, green) was made with my 6" x 6" stencil Pressed Leaves s277.  Over that, I made a print using 6" x 6" Swaying Grasses s276.  The final, top-layer print was made using part of 9" x 12" Boxed Vines L247. 

Above:  Swaying Grasses s276, paired with heavy-body acrylic orange paint, made this print on foreign newsprint that had been roughly brushed with leftover blue and green acrylic paints.



Thanks for coming to check out my blog today!  To scroll thru the pages of my StencilGirl stencils and masks, please start here.

 Looking for a "new" substrate for stencil-printing?  Try mica, a translucent mineral that comes in thin layers (and can be split into even thinner layers to create additional pieces and get more bang for your buck!) Several types of mica are available; some has a reflective quality much like a mirror.  Others are tinted brown; still others are nearly as clear as glass.

Several online sources exist for ordering sheets of mica.  One of the packages I've ordered looks like this: 

Mica lends itself to many delightful artsy uses.  It can easily be cut with scissors to form any shape you want.  It has a slick surface that accepts acrylic paint as well as some markers; the marker I've used here is the IDenti Pen permanent marker by Sakura.  

These tiles can be layered over paper or any other surface, using a clear-drying adhesive such as gloss gel -- it takes only a small dot or two of the gel, and in fact it's better to use a couple of dots rather than to spread the gel across the entire piece of mica.

Because it's flat, mica can be used for layered art that will fit smoothly onto the pages of an art journal.  But, because it's also rigid, it can also work beautifully on a journal cover as 3D art, supported underneath by 3D pop-up glue dots. 

My only caution is that, despite it being a mineral, its splitting quality sometimes makes it a little fragile around the edges of each piece.  The more the sheets are split apart, the more fragile these edges become.  When they first arrive, they are thickly layered, with barely any fragility.  But I end up splitting my tiles, to make them more translucent and to increase the number of tiles in each package.

Stencil-printed mica really makes a statement when used as "dangle-art."  You can punch a hole in the top of stencil-printed mica to make dangle earrings, Christmas tree ornaments and wire-linked charms for hanging in windows.    

Today I'm posting artwork made on mica with some of my stencils....



Above: To embellish this greeting card cover, I painted a layer of silver metallic acrylic paint over a tile of mica and used the 9"x 12" mask Clustered Leaves with heavy-body black acrylic paint to imprint the shapes of leaves.  Then I came back in with a red permanent marker to brighten the diagonal lines in the leaves.

Above: In developing this greeting card cover, I started by making 2 prints on the greeting card blank -- one with heavy body silver metallic paint and 9"x 12" Clustered Leaves, and one with heavy body metallic copper acrylic paint and 9"x 12" Loopy Ladders.  After those two prints had dried, I used extra heavy gloss acrylic gel to add a barrel-shaped mica tile printed using 9"x 12" Loopy Ladders with the same copper paint.  Atop that, I added a photo of an artwork I'd painted years ago.

Above: I used heavy body silver metallic paint and 9" x 12" Clustered Leaves in decorating this rectangular mica tile.  After that paint dried, I used extra heavy gloss acrylic gel to adhere the tile to a sheet of corrugated cardboard previously painted with red and purple acrylic paints.

Above center:  Loopy Ladders was used on a piece of reflective mica; again the paint was heavy body metallic copper acrylic paint and again the background is previously painted corrugated cardboard.

Above:  an isolated leaf printed with 9" x 12" Clustered Leaves (notice the translucency of the mica which lets you see part of the foil background)

Above:  one leaf from Clustered Leaves (again, notice the translucency of the mica which lets you see part of the background, which was created with a combination of Clustered Leaves and Loopy Ladders, the same as it had been in an earlier example in today's post.

I'm not a scrapbooker -- so, instead of showing images in a scrapbook below, I've substituted three digital art prints that I made several years ago.  On each of these three images I've used the same sheet of transparent mica, trimmed around the edges with metallic acrylic paint thru parts of my Loopy Ladders stencil.  This is to show how a piece of mica -- with its edges stencil-printed -- can be used as a frame-accent for any area of your art that you want to highlight:

Above:  This frame highlights a digital art print that I created in Photoshop.  I used the same silhouette in designing my 6" x 6" stencil Heron.

Today's featured masks look like this:

Loopy Ladders (9"x 12")

Clustered Leaves (9"x 12")

Thanks for taking time to stop by my blog today!  To scroll thru the pages of my StencilGirl stencils and masks, please start here.

Note:  The Feedburner team has discontinued its option for receiving my blog posts via their email subscription.   

To subscribe to this blog by email, please leave a Comment giving your email address.  Comment options are provided at the end of each blog post.  Since I have Comment Moderation, I can read comments but keep them from being published on the blog.  So your email addresses will not appear here on my blog.  Rather, I will be collecting them and adding them to my private emailing list thru Yahoo Email. I do not sell anyone's email address, period.  I don't like it when mine gets sold and I live by the Golden Rule! 

 

I've enjoyed creating some prints that I think of as "tile" prints.

Part of this "tile" look is developed by turning the stencils/masks in opposite directions while making each print.  This yields an impression of unity (because some designs match) yet, at the same time, variety (which ramps up interest for the viewer.)  

For the first "tile" below, I used both m268 R and E and m267 M and Y. (Its background is a pre-painted now-invalid stock certificate, a flea market purchase.)   

For today's second "tile," I used m267 M and Y. (Its background is a sheet of foreign newsprint.)

The "tile" below combines prints from both m268 R and E and m267 M and Y, as well as incorporating a background print made with my 9" x 12" mask Clustered Leaves.  The prints were made with acrylic paints; the borders were added with crayon. 

Below is a piece that, to my eye, has a tile-like appearance, since I've seen tiles arranged diagonally at times.  4" x 4" m268 R and E and m267 M and Y both were used.  Asemic writing helped enrich the background to add overall depth to the piece.

Above:   today's final "tile," developed with acrylic paints on pre-painted foreign newsprint.  Again, 4" x 4" m268 R and E and m267 M and Y were used together.

I have used some of my tile prints as coaster covers, cutting each piece to a size slightly larger than the coaster, then wrapping the edges under the coaster and securing them with extra-heavy acrylic gel medium (I prefer the matte version, but glossy works too.)  After that bottom adhesive has dried, I flip the coasters over and spread a layer of the same acrylic gel across the top.  After the top layer is dry, voila, you have a waterproof coaster.  I have found inexpensive coaster sets in dollar stores; also, coaster blanks can be found online -- and those blanks come in a variety of interesting shapes. 

Thanks for visiting today!  To scroll thru the pages of my StencilGirl stencils and masks, please start here.  

Note:  The Feedburner team has discontinued its option for receiving my blog posts via their email subscription.   

To subscribe to this blog by email, please leave a Comment giving your email address.  Comment options are provided at the end of each blog post.  Since I have Comment Moderation, I can read comments but keep them from being published on the blog.  So your email addresses will not appear here on my blog.  Rather, I will be collecting them and adding them to my private emailing list thru Yahoo Email. I do not sell anyone's email address, period.  I don't like it when mine gets sold and I live by the Golden Rule! 

 Why do I like using pre-printed papers -- foreign newspapers, old maps, old encyclopedia pages, catalog pages -- for making my stencil prints?

Whether I'm preparing backgrounds for art-journal pages, developing scrapbooking projects, or creating greeting cards or even refrigerator magnets, I think that:

(1) Pre-printed backgrounds offer bonus visual appeal because some areas of the original background will remain visible, altho veiled, in the finished art.

(2) If I want to cut out the stenciled image, these pre-printed lines of text give me handy guidelines, so I can make straight (or nearly straight) cuts.  (If working on a collage on a large canvas, I may not want straight-line cuts.  But I like having this option.)  To use these built-in guidelines, I turn the paper over, stencil-printed side facing downward.  The back of the paper usually has lines of text that guide me toward cutting straight lines.  

In the print below, it's easy to see that I used lines of Chinese characters as my guidelines for keeping my image straight while I made the print.  This print was made with Hot Air Balloon Mask and Mini.  (This is one of my two hot air balloon stencil-and-mask sets available at StencilGirlProducts.  These sets are identical except for size.  An Artist-Trading card-sized version is also available.) 

In making the print below, I used my 9" x 12" stencil Facets -- and a page from an old book of sheet music ....

Below, with my 4" x 4" stencil Fern Fronds Silhouette Mini, I gave new life to part of an old map ....

Mikki's Flowers, a 6" x 6" stencil, came in handy when I wanted to make the greeting card below.  Its background is a paint-tinted page from an old encyclopedia; the original page featured a flower illustration, so I felt it was a good match.

(Mikki's Flowers Mask is also 6" x 6".  Its design is identical with the stencil featured above.)

Webbed Medallion, another 6" x 6" stencil, ended up being used like a rubber stamp -- after I'd first put it to work in making a print.  That print left a heavy layer of acrylic paint on the stencil, so while the paint was still wet, I turned the stencil over and pressed it, wet side down, to an old map that had previously been lightly coated with beige acrylic paint....

Below:  an example of using a magazine page as background--

Above:  Stencil used:  6" x 6" Dance of the Courting Cranes.  The heart was punched from pink paper and added to the central area.

Above:  another page from an old encyclopedia, containing original botanical prints that are now in the background.  Used:  6" x 6" Garden at Nemours Mask.

Above:  This icad (made during an index card daily art-making challenge) includes purple-printed paper strips that were used with 6" x 6" Palm Fronds Silhouette Small (which also comes in 4" x 4" and 9" x 12" sizes.)  This icad includes strips of black paper printed with iridescent paint and my Artist-Trading-Card-sized design Fern Fronds.

Thank you lots for visiting my blog today!

To scroll thru the pages of my StencilGirl stencils, please start here.

Note:  The Feedburner team has discontinued its option for receiving my blog posts via their email subscription.   

To subscribe to this blog by email, please leave a Comment giving your email address.  Comment options are provided at the end of each blog post.  Since I have Comment Moderation, I can read comments but keep them from being published on the blog.  So your email addresses will not appear here on my blog.  Rather, I will be collecting them and adding them to my private emailing list thru Yahoo Email. I do not sell anyone's email address, period.  I don't like it when mine gets sold and I live by the Golden Rule!