mica stencils

 At our last craft get-together Moira passed on a technique she saw demoed by Dot from the Stamp Hut at the recent Suffolk Papercraft show in Bury St Edmunds - basically stamping with versamark through a stencil, embossing with stamp'n'bond powder, then dusting with mica pigments (through the stencil? -I didn't see this, as there was almost always a huge crowd round Dot, and she had moved on to other things when we eventually got to see late afternoon)

 Being Moira, she thought it would be simpler to emboss the stencil first, which is what we tried. Being me and born awkward, I had to choose a large stencil - I thought I had something at home that would just go in the centre - well, if I did, I haven't found it yet! Still, I was quite pleased with the result - it probably doesn't show too well on the scan, but the base card is a dark green, with mica in autumn colours over the leafy swirls. I did several versions before the stencil got too filthy, and one has actually made it to a card!!! The base of this one was blue, and the mica was basically the leftovers from the others, mostly a mix of gold and silver. Having had a pre-Christmas present of a

big shot, I treated myself to the Tim Holtz tattered

 florals die. I cut it out several times in various gold cards, layered it up with a green cutout  and added it to the centre of the frame, and it just fitted.

The samll gift tag was more the sort of stencil everyone else was using, and I was quite pleased with the snowy effect using white and green mica, with a gold for the moon.

Maybe now Pauline and Moira will stop complaining about how bad a blogger I have been lately! (sorry ladies, couldn't resist that).