Michelle Ward has challenged us to “Cut it out” by making our own stencils this month! Now last month, stamp carving opened up a whole new world for me and this month is no different. I’ve been really busy at home (working) and also making the Row Houses for our swap, having committed myself to posting them to Jeri 3rd week in April as they’ll possibly take a couple of weeks to arrive… so I haven’t really been at liberty to try my hand at stencils. However, look at this:

I drew them freehand on a sheet of fairly thin acetate and cut them out with a swivel-headed craft knife. The tutorial which Michelle has written on her site is so comprehensive, there are loads more things I want to do with this and I managed to cut out all the arrows intact, so that I can use them as ‘masks’ aswell… 2 tools in one!

So I had to make ‘art’ with these stencils, didn’t I? Okay, here’s a very ‘free’ layout I did, which took on a life of its own and I let it take me where it has… it’s my entry for Wednesday Stamper’s challenge – “Arrows”. I tried sponging inks through the arrows and green acrylic paint to see what results I got and then stamped onto them using a foam PM swirl stamp with Encore Brilliance copper – it’s very thick and sticky, almost never dries unless you heat set it, but it’s such a gorgeous rich colour, I find it hard to resist!

I added doodling with a black Sharpie and a white Sakura gel pen. The photo is a really naff pic of me over 20 years ago, standing in the garden at my parents’ house in Spain. The phrase, “Dude, where’s my luggage?” kept popping into my head, so I went with it! It’s sort of suggested by the tag shapes I drew round the arrows, their directionality and the silly photo. I get it, do you?