JAI #373 Stencils

Hello there,
home has been awash in germs for the last two weeks and all of them, and I mean ALL, decided to come and live up close and personal with me - urgh! I literally spent a solid week on the couch feeling miserable, so it's just as well I had to make my project for this week's Just Add Ink challenge a few weeks ahead to meet a family birthday deadline. This week Karren has suggested we Just Add Stencils. I went with a simple emboss resist technique to create a starry background. If you'd like to see a more complicated way to use a stencil to create a background, drop past my last Colour INKspiration post here. 

Here's what I came up with for my uncle's birthday - a big milestone birthday!

Many years ago in his professional life he worked for the European Space Agency so I figured a big starry sky was a good way to go. 

The how to:
To start I pulled out my stencil and dabbed Versamark on using a sponge dauber, carefully lifted it off and embossed the stars in gold. Then out comes the sponge brayers this is where the magic of creating a sky comes in, and is truly really simple. I used three tones of blue. First start with your lightest colour, concentrate that on the lower half of the card. Next using the mid tone work down from the top, creating a solid layer there and blending it, carefully over the lightest tone, you don't want to lose all that light blue! Now add the darkest shade, very carefully blend it over the mid blue, so you get a lovely gradient from really dark down to that bright gleam at the bottom. Once that's done, get a dry cloth and wipe over the panel to take any excess ink off the embossed stars.

To finish it off the night sky I splattered some fine flecks of white gouache over the panel and then layered up my focal panel. I added lots of gleams of gold, nothing fussy and a simple knotted ribbon.

The JAI design team have an inspirational array of ideas for using stencils so make sure to stop past all their blogs and then show us your project!

Thanks for visiting,
Kim

Recipe: All SU! unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Number of Years
Cardstock: Island Indigo, Whisper White
Ink: Night of Navy, Island Indigo, Pool Party, Versamark
Accessories: Large Number Framelits, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Circles Collection (R), Hearts and Stars stencil (R), Gold foil, Gold glimmer, Gold and White embossing powder, Gold 3/8" edged metallic ribbon, Sponge brayer, White gouache, Dimensionals, Tear and tape