Wooden house {with Eclectica³ Lin Brown Stamps and JoFY Stencils by Lucy Edmondson}

Hi Everyone, Lucy here. I'm delighted to be bringing you my second project.  I wanted to show you my technique for using stencils in awkward and small spaces, such as the compartments of this wooden house box. It's also useful for curved items or for going over the sides of canvases so your design is continuous.

First I painted the Wooden House Box in Snowflake, sanding between coats and doing a careful paint job as we will be working directly on the painted surface. The coverage was great! Then I cut rectangles of ordinary white packaging tissue paper, one to fit the pointed 'Attic' section, one to fit the bottom three sections, one to fit the largest section on the right, and one to fit the two sections centre left (we are going to cut these up after we have stencilled them so that the design is continuous across these sections).

 Taking the piece of tissue paper we cut for the centre left two sections, stamp it with the script stamp Mini 44 in StazOn Cactus Green as shown.
 

Mini 44

Position the JOFY 008 stencil sideways on over the piece of stamped tissue as shown. Add a small amount of Grunge Paste to a palette (I always use the lid of an ice cream carton!), and add a drop of Yellow Submarine and a drop of Zesty Zing and mix with your palette knife.

Use the tip of your palette knife to apply this to the centre of the flowers and then add a drop of London Bus to the remaining mixture on your palette and blend to make orange. Spread this over the rest of the stencil and off at the sides. Your piece of tissue is only small so it doesn't matter if you go off the edge onto other parts of the stencil as you can just scrape it away.

 Lift the stencil away carefully at the edge and dry with a heat tool and it will look like this. Cut it in half horizontally with a pair of scissors so that the two halves will fit perfectly into the relevant sections of the wooden house.

In the photo below I've followed the same technique for the blue seed pods in the right centre section which are JOFY 007 with Bora Bora darkened with a little South Pacific. In the background I have stamped the William Blake quote from ELB 05 in Rusty Hinge StazOn.

ELB05

 For the section below I used the script Mini 44 in Teal StazOn with the flower from stencil  ELB 005 in the same colours as the flowers above, and the leaves from stencil ELB 006 in Bora Bora mixed with Yellow Submarine (to make Green).

 In the attic I have used the word Bloom from JOFY 008 in Yellow Submarine and Zesty Zing.

 I found a really easy and quick way to adhere the pieces without getting in a sticky mess. Drop each piece down into position then, holding it in place with your finger, lift it up half a section at a time and apply Matte Glaze underneath with your brush and drop it back down and smooth it over with the brush. Then do the other half and go over the whole piece with more Matte Glaze to seal. If you try to add the Glaze to the section and then position the piece of tissue it will stick where it touches and you could tear it trying to get it into the corners. Give it a quick blast with the heat tool now and it will not only dry it but iron out any wrinkles so the tissue paper will 'disappear'.

 For the left hand side I stamped the text in Teal StazOn, and the quote from ELB 05 in Cactus Green directly onto the painted surface and stencilled the seed pods from JOFY 007 with Grunge Paste mixed with French Roast and Chocolate Pudding.

For the roof I die cut a chipboard awning from Tim Holtz Alterations On the Edge Ornate die and painted it with Snowflake, together with a metal photo corner. I covered the roof with buttons painted with the same paint colour mixes as I used for the stencilled flowers.

And for the right hand side, I have used the 'Flowers Whisper .....' quote in Teal StazOn, also from ELB 005.

I hope you have found this tip for stencilling onto tissue paper handy when dealing with awkward nooks and crannies. If you don't fancy giving the wooden house a go, I hope you will find other applications for this useful technique. The stencils are such a joy to use!

Lucy. 

A huge thank you to Lucy from all at PaperArtsy HQ. Oh Lucy i want to live in a house with a button roof! This is such a pretty piece, the first moment I saw it I was reminded of the style and colours of Clarice Cliff. This would not have been out of place amongst her decorated china. Thank you for the brilliant tips on using tissue paper, I am sure many of us have had a few choice words to say in the past when tissue paper has stuck in the wrong place and then torn. 

If you would like to join in our weekly challenge with any of this week's guests who have blogged since Sunday night, then join in to link up your creativity HERE you will go in the draw to win PA stamps of your choice! You need to link your entry by17:00 (London time) Sunday 11th May2014