Stencil with a View- Easy Masculine Card

In this week’s article at Renee’s Corner, I am showcasing how you can use a stencil within a die-cut shape to create a dynamic background.

Type of project: Card Making

Occasion: Just Because

Style: CAS

Techniques used: Stencilling, distressing, die cutting

Decoration: Paper cut outs

Main colours: Blue, green, red and white

Medium used: Distress Inks

Equipment used:Die cutting machine. paper cutter and scorer

Stencil with a View

This lovely stencilled card is masculine themed as evidenced by it’s blue and green tones and nautical imagery.

My DIY Stencil

I decided to use a circular shape for the main background as if one is looking through a porthole, at sea. The added circles would represent bubbles which (I hope in your minds) continue the water imagery.

To start, I created circular stencils out of paper. Using my Sizzix die-cutting machine, I die-cut several sized circles with my circular dies. I removed the cut outs as the holes ( I kept the shapes for future projects) that remained were really what I was after.

Stencil within a shape

Next, I folded my white card stock and proceeded to lay the circular stencil to the front. Next I overlayed a wave stencil on top of the circular one. I grabbed my distress inks and began inking the background for the paper cut-out to be placed upon. After this, I added some medium and small bubbles to fill the negative white spaces.

Using a white gel pen, I added curved lines to give the bubbles a 2-D effect as I wanted to keep it simple.

Adding the ‘star attraction’

After trying several nautical images, I settled on the the ship and anchor image. Next I added the greeting “Time to Sail Away” which could apply to many occasions.

The Final Touches

The blue border which you see at the bottom was an after thought. I found the card looked unfinished so I added a navy blue strip at the bottom with white and navy blue lines.

See you next time!