It's Blog Hop Week!

Here's my first Dreamweaver design for this week

Shopping List

Dreamweaver Stencil LX7016 Season of Joy

Metallic gold embossing paste

Ultrafine Crystal glitter

Star border peel off

s/a pearls + Stickles Diamond

Black & white linen card

All available from:-

www.woodware.co.uk

Your local stockist is:-

Japonica

22, The Parade

Exmouth

EX8 1RW

01395 271739

I have used one of the lovely new Christmas designs from Dreamweaver for our blog hop week & have employed 2 different techniques using the same stencil to show how versatile they are.

For the outside of my card I have passed the stencil through my Cuttlebug using white vellum. For this you will need A plate+B plate+stencil+vellum+sillicon mat+B plate + some shims of card (you'll need to play about with this until you get the pressure just right so use some card scraps first). I have cut an aperture & have matched the vellum panel over the golden version on the inside of my card which gives it a sparkly frosted look.

If you haven't used stencils with embossing pastes before below is a step by step guide from the Dreamweaver team to help you.

Using Embossing Paste with Brass Stencils

This technique looks especially nice on dark card stock. It has a sharper edge to it than either dry or thermal embossing and, like dry embossing, it can also be stenciled with color. When iridescent powders are added to the regular embossing paste, the embossing almost has an "Indian sandpainted" look to it.

1. When using embossing paste on the brass stencils, you need to work quickly, because the paste sets up in 20-40 minutes and you don't want it to dry into the fine bridgework of the brass stencils.

2. Make sure you are working on a hard flat surface and the stencil needs to be flat against the surface, because, if it is bent, the paste will pull under the bridges and smear.

3. Tape out the edges well with removable tape.

4. Pick up the paste on the bottom of the metal palette knife and smooth over the stencil's cut out areas as if applying icing to a cake. Now the paste on the stencil is about 1/8"- 1/4" thick. At this point, scrape off the excess paste until all the holes are filled evenly and the stencil surface is smooth.

5. Immediately take off the tape and pick up the stencil from the paper--lifting it off in a straight up manner as much as possible. It is important to clean the stencil off immediately, so drop it into a pan of water until you have time to scrub it with a vegetable or nail brush. If there is a film or residue of paste on the stencil, use a rubber stamp cleaner that removes permanent inks. Apply it generously and scrub with a dry paper towel.

6. Set aside the paste project for 20-40 minutes and, when dry, put the cleaned stencil back in place and stencil with a variety of mediums.

Here is the inside of my design using the embossing paste technique & I have added a little crystal glitter to the trees & snow to add some frosting. The starry border is a peel off in gold & I have finished off the outside of the card with some pearls which I have frosted with some Stickles.

 See you tomorrow!