Wish You Were Here

Who was a lucky girl this month? I was asked to be a Stencilgirl Voice for August too (I was one in July) and that meant that I got to see the August Stencilgirl Club stencils well in advance and work with them. And what a treat that proved to be. The set this month not only included a gorgeous background stencil designed by MaryBeth Shaw (the owner of Stencilgirl Products) but the main set is dedicated to travel. It includes a large star stencil and also the stars itself that can be used as masks (which I did here), as well as a small stencil with a sun image (and again the sun itself as mask). The medium stencil was my favourite of all, featuring elements of a vintage postcard with the text: wish you were here. All these were designed by Mary Nasser with whom I share a taste for travel related art.

I had a wonderful time putting these pages together. I used MaryBeth's stencil for the background that started with lots of collage featuring my favourite destinations such as Venice, Paris, the US and even the UK. The collage came from travel brochures as well as from Tim Holtz's and 7Gypsies tissue wrap and a handmade paper with graphic imagery.

I then used the stars (that came in multiple sizes) as masks and rubbed paint off the edges of them to make them stand out. For that I applied Nuvo Embellishment Mousse, a new (to me) paint that truly looks good enough to eat (don't!). It has a subtle glimmer with is so good to look at.  I also used parts of the star stencil as a proper stencil and with gold paint added some of the smaller sized ones to the pages. I worked in a ringbound A4 sized art journal by Seawhite.

Then elements of the postcard themed stencil were used to add words as well as airmail stickers and post marks to the pages. Of course I had to add an Italian postage stamp too.

This turned out to be one of my own favourite spreads ever. I just love how the colours work together and the combination of all those exotic destinations. Makes me want to go and pack a suitcase!