Stenciling backgrounds with Stampin’ Up! decorative masks

I was downstairs one night without any of my usual supplies – and casual company (my kids).  We were watching TV, but my hands needed to be doing something.  I did have some stencils and ink and brushes – and washi tape.  So, it sounded like a good time to play with some backgrounds.  My cart had the Stampin’ Up! Plenty of Patterns Decorative Masks.

I have always loved black and white with a splash of any bright color.  A bunch of my kitchens have been decorated that way!  It is fun and lets you play with the craziest colors that would be a bit much on their own.  But add three splashes here and there – and voila!  A new look…

It works for cards too…and that was my thought as I sat with folks, watching tv, and needing to do something…  The decorative masks were a great solution – have you used them?

If not, here is how to start:

I used washi tape to secure the panel to the stencil because it is important that nothing shifts around while you are brushing the ink on.

Using a circular motion and alternating from clockwise to counterclockwise, the ink is brushed onto the stenciled panel until you are happy with coverage.  I chose to make the stenciling as uniform as possible.  Sometimes, though, the resulting pattern is designed to be less saturated.  A shabby chic style would result in a distressed, aged, uneven look…it just depends.

Once the stenciling was done (and I could escape to my craft room and the rest of my crafting treasures!), I stamped the main image from the Stampin’ Up! In Symmetry in Versamark Black Ink and then a second image in Magenta Madness ink.  After fussy cutting the two flowers, I glued them together and popped them out with Stampin’ Up! Dimensionals next to the sentiment.

Using my favorite Tailored Tags punch, I punched a white tag and stamped it with “Thanks” coming from Stampin’ Up!’s Hand Penned stamp set.  It is a nice cursive font.  I framed the white tag with a black punch cut in half and glued to frame the sentiment tag on the top and bottom. 

I used a sentiment from the same In Symmetry stamp set for the inside.  These two fonts work well together.

This is a quick card and the only other finishing touch that I wanted to include was the envelope decoration.  I used the stencil on the flap and then a black flower stamp on the front of the envelope as a preview to what’s inside.

Oh, and the measurements are pretty standard:

I think that this would be great with gray ink instead of black – not as stark.  But it would also work on a color background as well.  I think that we can get a lot of mileage out of this simple design!

And it is portable – so that you can take it with you and get some backgrounds done!

I entered this into the Card Concept Challenge #166. I love these challenges as it gets me to think beyond my usual habits in card design. But this one also played into my “I love black and white with a wild colored accent” tendency! And hot pink with black and white? Who could resist?

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  I have listed the supplies here – but it is a fairly short list: