A SIMPLE SYMPATHY CARD

A simple sympathy card idea - ink around the edges of nesting dies in various shades of grey (or whatever colour you chose), blending as you go.  Add a die-cut circle, birds and greeting, cut the panel to 10cm x 15cm, and slip it into a photoslot card.

If you prefer to use brighter colours, you could also condsider replacing the birds with butterflies.

STENCILLED ROSE CARD

STENCILLED ROSE CARD

Tania has made this lovely stencilled card, with a Kaiser template and sponged on ink - first using darker shades for detail through the stencil and then adding colour with lighter applications.

Paper flowers and die cut embellishments complete the card.

Much of what you see on-line using stencils at the moment is on the "arty" side, using texture pastes, sprays etc but this card illustrates how effectively stencils can be used in the more traditional style of card.

Regal craft cards have lots of stencils currently in stock if you'd like to try for yourself, plus of course a huge range of base cards!

CARD FEATURING A METAL FLOWER

METALLIC FLOWER EMBELLISMENT

If you're like me, the combination of summer and Christmas has resulted in more than the usual amount of potentially useful craft items.

Soft drink cans are a case in point. As long as you use the fairly thin ones and proceed carefully, it's possible to both die-cut and emboss them to make embellishments.

The red flower on this card has been made from a diet coke can and a floral nesting die.  As there was a lot of red on the can, I was able, by careful positioning of the die to avoid having to colour anything.  (The stamen was cut from a silver section, and the whole stack held together with a silver split pin).

Mostly, the reverse side of a softdrink can is silver, however, so if you do need to add colour, the marker pens that you use to colour rhinestones and peel-off stickers can be used.

Thin aluminium is easy to shape so adding additional dimension is really easy.

The background is just metallic pens through a floral stencil onto black card, and I've added a bit of curling ribbon to make it match in, as the gold pen seemed to dominate.

TWO STENCILLED CARDS

STENCILLED AND STAMPED BUTTERFLY CARDS

Stencilling is very much the "in" thing at the moment, and Lee has used a stencil from Fabscraps to make these elegant cards.

On the pink one she has used two different Distress Inks to produce an ombre effect.  The background has been overstamped with a butterfly from a Kaiser stamp and die set, using black Versafine ink.  Subtle accent dots were made with Nuvo Drops, although you could also use Liquid Pearls.

The lavender card only uses one colour of Distress Ink, with the graduated colour effect being produced by using different amounts of ink and pressure through the stencil.  Both greetings are from Darkroom Door's "Simple Sayings" set.

Both these cards are of a simple, but very effective design.  If you haven't tried stencilling before perhaps this is the inspiration you need.  Regal Craft has a large range in store, as well as a huge selection of base cards

CARDS USING STENCILS AND DISTRESS INKS

STENCILLED BUTTERFLY CARD

Stencils are all the go at the moment.  There are lots of different designs available at Regal right now and so many different ways to use them.

Lee has made the butterfly card at the top, using a distress ink background, with flicked water features and added a die cut greeting.

I've done something very similar for the feather card, only I've stamped on a more sparsely coloured distress ink background using a misted acrylic stamping block, before stencilling on the spots.

The third card has used the same stencil through the Cuttlebug (any similar machine will work), using a rubber mat to emboss the light card.  (I cut the circle in the middle out first).  I then just lightly rubbed some ink over the top to emphasize the texture.

All three cards feature die cuts.  The big butterfly is layered for a 3d effect.  Lee had added a glitter tape border to the edge of her panel, and I've inked mine to make it stand out a little more from the background.

TWO MORE EXAMPLES OF STENCILLED BACKGROUNDS