Cecilia Swatton

Need near-last-minute cards to house holiday tips for your mail carrier, your kids' teachers, etc.?  Just about any paper printed with stencils or masks can be used for decorating giftcards.

It helps to have on hand stickers; I use these.  (Note:  when I use these stickers, I often cut thru some of the sticker strips to get "leftover" trim because some projects call for narrow, less ornate sticker decoration.  You will see these leftover trims on today's art samples.)

Greeting card blanks are handy but not necessary; I buy mine from Jam Paper because their card blanks are cut from cardstock sturdy enough to stand up to stencil printing or collage making.  For Christmas cards, I buy their metallic-finish and glitter-finish card blanks,  5" x 7" and 6" x 6" (or something close to 6" x 6").

At times I utilize my own stash of sturdy cardstock to make card blanks of a larger size.  To make these cards, I fold 8" x 11" cardstock into half.  Today's first art sample measures 8.5" high and 5.5" wide.  (Yes, there are envelopes big enough to house this size.)

Above:  This cardstock was first coated with assorted colors of acrylic paints; then printed 3 times using Hot Air Balloon & Mask M185.

What other stencil- and mask-printed papers did I have lying around?  I found a few....

Above:  Papers printed using 9" x 12" Mimosa L141.

Above:  Printed using 6" x 6" Pavilion Shadows s464.

Above:  This multi-layered print was created using 6" x 6" Looking Up Through Trees Small s793 and 9" x 12" Looking Up Through Trees Large L753.  In making each print, I turned the paper 45 degrees.  Criss-crossing patterns resulted.

Working with the last print directly above, I used a freehand-cut template of a Christmas tree ....

... and a gold metallic Sharpie pen to trace Christmas tree shapes.  Above:  I arranged the template so that the bar shapes would run diagonally across the tree; for me, these diagonal lines hint at garland wrapped around the tree.  The next two close-ups show my results.

More cards....

6" x 6" Pavilion Shadows s464

9" x 12" Mimosa L141

Below:  This square of stencil-printed paper, metallic silver paint on red background, had been already cut to size.  All I needed to do was add stickers to its metallic gold card blank:

Above:  Printed using 4" x 4" R & E m268.

Many thanks for checking out my blog today!  To scroll thru the pages of my StencilGirl stencils and masks, please start here.