Thinking of You with ACLD

Hi friends! I am so pleased to be the month-long guest designer for A Colorful Life Designs, a small woman owned stencil company. Several months ago, I had written to Mary Kay, the owner, and asked her to tell me more about her company. This was her reply "A Colorful Life Designs is a small woman owned stencil company based in Dallas, TX. I’ve been a paper crafter since the 1990s and love designing and manufacturing tools for the paper crafter." 

Mary Kay's stencils are unique and perfect for card making, mixed media, art journaling and home decor. I plan to showcase during the month of May some of the many ways to use her intriguing stencils.

For today's post, I am featuring Paint Strokes:

In my mind, I envisioned a card with dark navy strokes and gold tips.  To create this I started with a piece of Blick Art Bristol Smooth Card Stock in an A2 size panel (4 1/4" X 5 1/2"). Bristol Smooth is perfect for smooth ink blending.

I choose different Paint Strokes, placing them in varying lengths across the page on both right and left. They were ink blended, one at a time, using Prize Ribbon Distress Ink and a Scrapbook.com Foam Blending Tool.

I let dry overnight (I prefer not to use a heat tool) and went back with a Tsukineko Versamark Watermark Pen covering the area the I wanted to be gold. This watermark pen is very inexpensive and a great way to fill in areas with our favorite sticky ink that might have been missed during heat embossing. I sprinkled Ranger Ink's Princess Gold Embossing Powder and heat set. I liked the modern, yet striking look of these simple strokes with gold!

To finish I used a sentiment of Honey Bee's Everything Wonderful (now discontinued) and also heat embossed with the same gold. I think this is a good basic card design - colors could be switched up - and would be good for male, female, birthdays, celebrations, etc., etc., etc.!

I cut the panel with Sugar Pea Designs Card Front Element Builder II, I love that tiny dot edge. Glued to a navy card base with a white insert for writing.

Well I hope you enjoyed my first peek at one of the creative stencils from A Colorful Life Designs. Lots more to come!

I am also submitting to NBUS for this is the first time I've used this stencil (but not the last!):

*Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.