Paint Your Own Born to Be Wild Canvas - Denise Alloca Creative Team Thursday

When I received Jessica’s Born to Be Wild Animals stencil it reminded me of my daughter, not that she’s a wild child!  That and she loves animals and has an incredible spirit.  For this Design Team contribution I decided to make a canvas for my daughter Erin.  Using three of Jessica Sporn’s stencils I created a bright, positive piece of artwork for Erin. I started off painting my canvas in bright colors, then I used a texture plate to add interest.  

Next I used a reductive stenciling technique that gives a subtle and interesting look to the image.  A little detailing with Stabillo pencils and water, and done.

I hope you enjoy the video!

Materials:
10x10 Canvas
Acrylic paints
Jessica Sporn’s Stencils found at:
 http://www.stencilgirlproducts.com/stencils-jessica-sporn-s/1827.htm
Stabillo Pencils
Faber Castel Black Gelato
Deco Arts Americana Sealer

With a passion for art from an early age, Denise Alloca turned her interest to photography and later art education. Through her diverse exposure to various art forms, she found her way to mixed media art, where she currently showcases her work on her blog.  Denise has been a Design Team member for Donna Downey’s Artist Gang, creating instructional videos showcasing various mixed media techniques.  Denise's work has also been published in Art Journal Kickstarter, which offers advice and techniques for art journaling enthusiasts.

Thanks for this great tutorial Denise!  

Make sure to check out all of the Creative Team's wonderful creations and inspiration.

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

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How To: See the Divine in Everything

Stencil Girl recently released seven new designs of mine! Over the next few weeks, I will be showing you how I used them.

Today, I'm sharing the Love is for Everyone Script, and See the Divine in Everything stencils, that were inspired by insights I've had in meditation.

I designed them so that you could mix and match the words to make different phrases, besides the obvious, such as:

everything is Divine

I am Divine

I see the Divine

Love is Divine

Love is meant to lift us up

lift up out of the darkness

see Love in the darkness

I am in Love 

Love is everything

lift up the Divine in everything

Love everyone and everything

lift everyone up in Love

You get the idea! I am sure there are many more!

Of course, you can also use each stencil on its own, like this:

You can also watch "Divine in everything" on YouTube here.  

I hope my videos and tutorials spark your creativity. If you use any of my stencils or stamps, or are inspired by techniques I share, please let me know so I can feature you!

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

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DIY: What to do with all those plastic eggs!

With Spring in full swing (for most of us) and those infamous Easter egg hunts just around the corner, I rummaged through my posts and came across this gem.  Here are some great ideas on what to do with all those leftover plastic eggs... and if you have some wooden spools hiding in your stash, you can use those too!

Years ago when my oldest daughter Mariel was little, we hosted an Easter egg hunt in our backyard.  I never threw away those plastic eggs, but I also never again filled them with candy.  They sat, empty, for more than 16 years, and were moved to two different houses.

and hiding in my stash were a bunch of vintage wood spools (I love these!)...

Looking at them side by side, I remembered the Faberge Eggs and their elaborate stands.     

I decided to make a mixed media version of these classic eggs.

1.  I pierced little holes in the tops of the eggs.I threaded a piece of string inside, so that I could hang them to dry.

2.  I got out my collection of scraps, and randomly adhered the scraps to the eggs with Matte Medium.  Then I dabbed all of them with Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and Indian Hue Fluid Acrylic paint to unify them a bit.  Here's how they looked:

3.  To give them some individual character, I dabbed them with different colors of craft paint, mixed with glazing medium.

4.  I stenciled different color flowers onto a sheet of deli paper, using the Garden Flowers and Leaves stencil.  It's very springy, don't you think? 

5.  I cut out the flowers and leaves, and adhered them to the eggs.  The parts of the deli paper where I did not add color "melted" into the background, making it look as if I had stenciled directly onto the eggs!

6.  Using Iridescent Gold Paint (Golden Fluid Acrylics), I stenciled the Five Hamsas onto white tissue paper.  I "cut" them up using a thin wet brush, and adhered the bits to the eggs.  I also stenciled some of the borders from the Stitch a Greek Border Stencil in gold as well.

7.  I painted the spools either gold or black, and adhered the borders to them.

(Hint:  This is why stamping or stenciling onto tissue paper is such a cool technique.  I NEVER could have gotten such crisp images on the spools if I tried to stencil directly onto them.  But with the tissue paper, the un-stamped or stenciled parts become translucent as the matte medium dries, leaving a crisp image!)

8.  Using black paint and white tissue paper, I stenciled "Now is the Time" words.  I adhered the words onto the spools and eggs too.

 (I used Weldbond glue, which eventually became transparent after I took the pictures, but a glue gun would have worked too!)

I'm in love with these eggs.  I think they look classic, yet fresh and whimsical.  Here's my Pinterest board with other egg-alicious ideas.   Are you doing any spring-inspired art or craft?  Share your links in the comments. 

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can. 

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

InLinkz.com

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.

If you are entering a GIVEAWAY, please add your email address in the event I need to contact you.

To avoid SPAM, please write it like this: jessicasporndesigns (at) gmail (dot) com

Thank You!

How to: Upcycle Cardboard into Inspirational Art - Creative Thursday with Sherry Canino

Hi Creative friends! Sherry Canino here today for the Creative Team and I have a fun tutorial on how I used some amazing stencils from Jessica Sporn Designs and some cardboard from my recycle bin to create some mixed media houses.

This is a fantastic way to use up lots of bits and pieces in your stash or things you may have laying around so grab your coffee and enjoy the video!

Here is a close up of the house completed in the video

And here are some other houses I completed using the same stencils as well as one additional stencil not used in the video.  (You'll see the complete list of stencils used below.

So now what to do with all these adorable houses you have created???  Well I decided to turn mine into a piece of home décor which is why all of my houses have a positive or inspirational saying on them that I cut out from magazines.

The steps to create a simple home décor piece out of your mixed media houses are super simple:

• Take a canvas and turn it over so you are using the back side, cover it in book pages, old sheet music, scrapbook or patterned paper or whatever you like the look of, I used dictionary paper.  
• Use a decoupage process to adhere your papers on and be sure to cover up all the wood on the back side of the canvas as well as wrap it around the edges.  
• Once dry I added just a tiny bit of color using a dry brush and paints in similar colors used on my houses to keep the look cohesive.  
• Then take your houses and arrange them on your canvas to your liking and glue on with a gel medium or E6000 glue.  (you want a glue that is going to be strong once it's dry so they don’t pop off. ) 

And that’s it, let it dry and display.  Below is a photo of my completed canvas.  I chose to write a little saying at the top using a black sharpie and then added some hearts and swirls from the Coffee Mugs and Love Stencil.

Here is a list of, and links to, the stencils I used in the video:

Borders 9J Stencil 

Coffee Mugs and Love Stencil 

Doors and Windows Stencil

Namaste Stencil

I hope you'll make your own houses and share them with us!

Sherry Canino, a former accountant, is a self taught mixed media artist and owner of Canino’s Artistic Café. She also works as an art therapist for a local organization.  Her style is whimsical, colorful and inspirational and has been featured in Syracuse Women’s Magazine.  She offers local as well as private art classes in her Liverpool Studio, and art journal or art therapy classes on location for businesses and schools.  Find Sherry on Facebook , Instagram, Etsy and on her blog.

THANK YOU SHERRY!  To see all of the Creative Team posts, click here! 

         Visit Stencil Girl Products and RubberMoon Stamps to see all my designs!

If you haven't already - please connect with me here:

InLinkz.com

Your comments make me so happy and let me know you were here. I read and treasure every comment and will happily answer any questions as soon as I can.