Dragons' Dream - Stencils and the letter 'N'.

Hello from Magpieheaven! It feels like ages since I last blogged, but I think it's just a week! It's been a busy time in the Magpie's Nest, but here I am with another tag to share for the Dragons' Dream TIO Challenge. It was great looking at all those butterflies and 'I' words last time and the Dreamboat 3 will soon be announced. This week the talented Helen has chosen the recipe and it's Stencils and the Letter 'N'. Do click here to see the fabulous ideas the Design Team have come up with. This week we have some truly amazing inspiration from all the team including our Guest Designer, Kerstin. If there's one thing I've really had fun with since I started crafting it's been discovering the effects that can be achieved with stencils. Here is the tag I created this time.

I used a jumbo manila tag and my favourite (at the moment!) stencil by Rebekah Meier. This stencil is a 'doily', but I thought I might be able to adapt it to create the effect of a 'rose window' with some blue sky beyond! I recently won some Lynne Perrella stamps which I have wanted for ages in the PaperArtsy draw, so as these feature pens and ink, my 'make' had to be on the theme of 'Nibs'! Perhaps my Lynne Perrella lady has gone into her garden on a glorious sunny afternoon to write and to dream. Something about her lovely strong profile suggests Italian to me so I envisioned her in an Italian garden rather like the Augustus Gardens in Capri. I went there years ago and I've never experienced anything quite so beautiful since.

I began by painting my tag with Vanilla Fresco Finish by  PaperArtsy and I took a beautiful tag with some faint script printed on it, sent me by my crafting friend, Kezzy and tore it! I then swiped it through distress inks, Vintage Photo and Burlap. I stamped it with my brand new Lynne Perrella stamp, using Stazon ink. Normally I use Versamark because I find this reproduces the detail on these stamps so much better, but I bought some Stazon recently so that I could try out a technique demonstrated by Liesbeth Fidder at PaperArtsy. I was going to have a play with bleach! I would think how I might convey the detail later. At the front of my photo you can see a little square of a Lin Brown stencil leaf made from Grunge Paste. At a Craft Barn class, Lin had shown us how to create tiles using Grunge Paste stencils snipped into rectangles, painted and then highlighted with Treasure Gold. I planned to use this one as the background for my letter.

I really loved the effect of dropping the bleach onto the background. If you look closely, you can see that the printed writing that formed the background on the tag given me by Kezzy shows through. If you look back to the previous image you will see how little detail came out with the Stazon. The pens and the lady's beautiful headdress were no more than black silhouettes. I loved the bleached background, but not the loss of detail. What could I do? I painted some card with Antarctic Fresco and Mermaid, blended together and then stamped the image again on this, using Versamark. I then 'fussy cut' the headdress and pens and stuck them over the parts of the image where the detail had not stamped out. I also added a pen nib with some Treasure Gold and Frantage on it and 'Hey presto' the image had come alive. Some Sapphire TG on the curled edges really helped too. You can see how when the stencilling in Grunge Paste is painted and then touched with Treasure Gold it looks very effective. I also inked up another of my Lynne Perrella stamp plates on the theme of pens and ink (LP026) and created the 'Indian Ink' butterfly! I painted a wooden letter, clear embossed it and added Frantage to create the shiny 'N'.

I stencilled the same leafy pattern from Lin's stencil in Evergreen Bough Distress ink to give a soft leafy background and edged my tag with green and gold frantage.

Here is the rose window, or maybe it's an ornate trellis with the blue Capri sky behind it. Three of the butterflies are from LPC030 and three are Distress Inks, one with the lacy stamp from Crafty Individuals. The touches of sunshine are courtesy of Fresco Yellow Submarine. The script is from LPC028.

The butterfly wings are touched with Treasure Gold and tiny gems wink on their wings. Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my Dragons' Dream tag today. Please do link up if you have been inspired to create a tag using your favourite stencils. Remember you must feature the letter 'N' somewhere on the tag and at least one stamped image. Here's hoping your skies this week will be as blue as those I can see through my 'rose window'!