The Crafter's Workshop/Balzer Designs Stencil Hop | Stars & Circles

Welcome to The Crafter's Workshop/Balzer Designs Stencil Hop.

This month features the very cool Stars And Circles stencil.

I'm a big fan of Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. She's got a great blog that's filled with educational creative content (check out her recent post about her experience with Project Life six-months in) and her stencil designs are awesome so I was even more excited to play. Check out the list of other people participating in this month's blog hop at the bottom of this post.

Here's a look at my completed layout:

Here's a closer look at my process:

Print a 12x12 photo. I'm not tired of creating layouts on a 12x12 photo background. In fact, I want to do more. I print these here at home using my Epson R2000 printer onto Epson 13x19 photo paper.

I knew I wanted to do a series of circles (most of them from the stencil) going down the left side of the photo.

Once I had the stencil in place I used white paint (gesso would work too) applied liberally on top of the circle/star combo. I wanted it to be thick - it means a little extra drying time but looks cool due to the additional dimension.

Love that.

Next I used the Silhouette to cut "love this" (actually it's the center of this design that's been hanging out on my table waiting for a home - from the Circles Of Life set) and used a really big circle punch and some cute Amy Tangerine Sketchbook pattern paper (from the 6x6 pad).

The Xyron Creative Station comes in handy with the Silhoutte cut files. You can see a video of how I use it here.

I didn't adhere that circle right away because I wanted to get the others in place first and add a bit of paint around the edge as you'll see below.

For the next circle I used Versamark Embossing Ink + Green Metallic Zing Powder + a heat gun. Lay the stencil down, press the embossing ink pad down into the stencil, remove the stencil, pour on some powder, remove the excess, and then melt with a heat gun. Be careful when "cooking" the ink + powder on top of a photo - if you leave the heat gun pointed on one place for too long it might bubble. Mine did just a bit and then it laid back down.

For the last circle I repeated the white paint and stencil.

I added some of the white paint around the edge of the circle before adhering it down with foam dots.

Here's what it looked like before I added the journaling around the outside edges.

I used glossy accents to adhere the wood veneer stars and added white paint around the outside edge of the photo. I also added a great "the story" white rub on from Hambly in the upper right corner.

Once the paint was dry I added journaling with a black pen, beginning right after "the story" rub on.

Found this button in my stash from October Afternoon's 5 & Dime.

Here's another look at the completed page:

SUPPLIES

Click on the images to link to the products.

Check out the other people participating in this month's blog hop:

• Julie Fei-Fan Balzer




• Diana Trout




• Karen Grunberg




• Christine Urias




• May Flaum




• Alisa Burke

Check out all the spring stencil hops here using Julie's different designs.