Selective Two Color Stenciling

Have you seen the new Hero Arts challenge? Its all about using those fabulous flowers on our projects! And truth be told, in anticipation of Spring all I want to do is surround myself with stunning florals and bright colors. How about you?

Hero Arts [hero_product_link sku="SA067" text="Bold Floral Stencil"] from the 2016 Catalog (coming to our store on February 8!) is a perfect tool to create stunning flowers on cards, tags or any other paper crafting project. The cards I'm sharing today were created using a fun technique called Selective Two Color Stenciling (okay, I made that name up just now, but this is what I would call it). Whenever I see a stencil my mind instantly goes into "one color full sheet inking" mode, but this time I challenged myself to step outside the box and use two colors of ink and do partial or selective inking only.

I started by trimming my [hero_product_link sku="PS610" text="cardstock"] to 4 1/4 by 5 1/2 inches, placed my Bold Floral stencil on top and taped it in place to make sure it would not move. Instead of using an ink blending tool, I used a [hero_product_link sku="MI002" text="mini dauber sponge"] - its smaller and yet allows you to have more control over where you apply ink on your paper. I started by using the lightest yellow from the [hero_product_link sku="AF309" text="Butter Bar to Orange Soda ink"] and applied it in two sections in the top left hand side corner. I also added the same ink to one section in the bottom right hand side corner. The idea was to ink the corners only.

To create some variation of color and make this background more appealing to the eye I also introduced the second color - the lightest from the [hero_product_link sku="AF306" text="Pink to Red Ombre ink pad"] and added it to a few areas.

You can also move your stencil, flip it, rotate it to diversify the pattern on your project. At one point I even had an idea to cut it apart and use individual pieces! I'll have to try that one day.

To finish my cards I die cut a Love word from the [hero_product_link sku="DC175" text="Love Stamp & Cut Set"] and foam mounted it over my inked background and also heat embossed an additional sentiment using [hero_product_link sku="PW115" text="Brass Embossing Powder"]. Instead of die cutting, I stamped the sentiment for my second card - used [hero_product_link sku="AF101" text="Black ink"] for a lot of contrast and definition.

I hope I was able to inspire you to create!