Krafty Pencil Flowers

Good evening, and today was a beautifully sunny, blue sky day after several gloomy days of rain & gray. I was a happy camper to see the sun.

Yesterday went to a Silhouette Cameo stencil cutting class.  Had to dust off the cameo. (shameful yes). It took some doing, because my cameo was cutting an acetate material that my friend Loll - who does stencils all the time - recommended. (couldn't find the stencil material that was purchased a while back). But finally the teacher's patience and my efforts paid off. First, I think I selected a more complex shape than I should have. Should have just been something very basic. Also we learned that the silhouette Platinum blade worked better for the acetate with my cameo. But here's the final result, and we were both very pleased with it. Hard to photo the material, so I had to darken the photo. (Big pats on back to ME but even more to the teacher!!! LOL). And thanks to Loll for the stencil link.

 



Now in case you didn't know this, there is a BIG NBUS challenge going on over at Darnell's  . She has some optional rules for different techniques that can be part of the challenge --- BUT - the main requirement is to use a NBUS. You ask, what does this NBUS mean? It is Never Before Used Schtuff
(the Blog-a-nition tab has a lot of these peculiar terms if you get cornfused). I missed the deadline for the kraft & pencil, and dang, I did 2 of 'em. I'm rather rubbish with pencils, but here's the one I liked best. Will share the other one later.

 Pretty sure this old wooden stamp was a NBUS, and was stamped with a Hero Arts soft green shadow ink pad (which was NBUS too). I didn't want the outline to show. Then used Polychromos (oil base pencil) to color. The kraft paper is just some Recollections c/s from Michaels, and it seemed really difficult to blend. I struggle with that using pencils & watercolor anyway; considered using gamsol, but decided not to do so. Used a white gel pen to add some highlights, and a copic green multiliner pen to darken the leaf and some stems. (then as usual, wished I'd left that alone!)

Scored the bottom lines, then used a S/B basic square to emboss a frame, which was outlined with a copper Pentel Slicci pen. Had to rescore the lines after embossing the square.

- Sentiment from a clear set (and that definitely is a NBUS -- had to cut the words apart too as it's a 2-line sentiment). Used WOW Ultra embossing ink, then WOW Copper pearl to heat emboss.

Finally added a small rhinestone as the center of the pink flower. (Don't laugh! I keep trying to get better with pencils! Maybe one day I'll get a decent one.)

Added some cards to the Cards by Friends page too. Hope you'll have time to enjoy them with us.

And join in with Darnell's NBUS Challenge too. Ya know what, even though I missed the kraft & pencil, #9 still has an optional NBUS general usage, so I'm going over!

Hugs & thanks for joining me. Come again when you can. Don't forget tomorrow is also the start of the first Rudolph Day for 2017.