Backporch: Technique of the Week: Distress Crayon Stenciling

Friday, July 1, 2016

Technique of the Week: Distress Crayon Stenciling

Recently I've been playing with my Distress Crayons and I like the idea of using them with stencils. This technique is actually from Sally Penley, who is a recent, and very popular teacher at Art 'n Soul. When Sally was at ANS to teach a Pastel Dusting class, I asked her if she would mind trying out a similar technique that she was doing with her pastels, and try it with the Distress crayons. What she did was amazing, and honestly, I'm not sure if I did it justice,, but I do like what I ended up with.

Here is what Sally made. She just dashed this off during the class, that's how good she is. When we schedule more classes with Sally, be sure to sign up!

By Sally Penley

For my card, I used the Magenta tulip stencil TM150, the Magenta stamp 07.907.L Multilingual Happy Birthday, Magenta MNU-015 Red Nuance. The crayons I used were Peeled Paint and Festive Berries. To cut my panel, I used Lawn Fawn die LF788 Small Stitched Rectangles and cut it out of Tim Holtz watercolor paper. The largest die in this set will cut a panel 3.75" x 5", which is a perfect size for matting. Watercolor paper is not required for this technique, but I like the texture of it. To cut the strip for the sentiment, I used MFT Die 463 Blueprints 13 which I will show later.

I taped my panel down to my work surface, and taped the Magenta stencil in place over it, using painter's tape.

I used the Distress crayons to color onto the stencil and panel both.

I used my finger to pull the color into the open areas of the panel. Sally's favorite tool for this would be a Viva paper towel, but since I didn't have one, I resorted to using my fingers.

If you try this, only work a small area at a time, and try not to get very big blobs of the crayon on your stencil or card.

After pulling Festive Berries color into all the petal areas of the tulip, I used the Peeled Paint to color the leaves and stems. I then colored the petals and leaves with clear Wink of Stella glitter pen. I did spend a little time cleaning up edges at this point, and the Wink of Stella pen helped soften some areas.

I decided I wanted speckles over the top, so I mixed some Red Nuance with pearly water, and flicked it over the card.

To finish, I cut a small piece of black cardstock using one of the small dies from Blueprints 13 from MFT. I love this set because it has a die that will cut a stitched panel that is 4 x 5.25, which is the perfect mat size. For this card, I used the strip on the lower right in the photo.

The die was actually a little longer than I wanted, so I measured the sentiment, and pulled one end of the strip past the edge of the die and cut it again, ending up with a deckled edge on each end of my shortened strip. This photo shows my stamp on top of the paper, and how I pulled the paper over in the die to shorten it. No, I did not leave my stamp on top when I die cut; this was just for measuring purposes. (Yes, I did cut up my Multilingual Happy birthday set, so that I could have each language separately. I DO have another uncut stamp though!)

I stamped the sentiment onto the black strip with Versamark ink, using my mini MISTI tool. I embossed it with JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder, and added an exclamation mark with a white gel pen. The sentiment was popped up with foam tape, and the panel was matted with Stardream Jupiter cardstock. I scattered a few sequins on the finished card.

I hope you try this technique. I found it easy and really fun to do.

Magenta Products Used:

(If you are local, please look for products at Art 'n Soul. If you are not local and wish to find Magenta products, you can click on the link in the stamp name below each image, or you can visit the Magenta online store here).