Jot Magazine Issue 14: Make Something Beautiful

Have you ever had a photo that you loved, so much, that you just held on to it until you had the perfect products to scrapbook it? Well, this was my photo, and when challenged with the "stencils" category in Jot Magazine issue 14, I finally pulled it out and got a bit messy to document it. Well, messy for me! 

Supplies | Cardstock: Bazzill Basics. Patterned paper: Studio Calico, Scraptastic Club. Stickers: American Crafts (alpha), Studio Calico (dots, crosses). Stamps: Scraptastic Club. Die-cut shapes: Studio Calico (blue circles), Scraptastic Club (red vellum brushstroke). Rub-ons: American Crafts. Digital files: Studio Calico. Die-cutting machine: Silhouette Cameo. Font: Rough Typewriter. Other: Golden modeling paste, Studio Calico spray ink, Project Life date stamp.

To create my title, I cut the word "beautiful" out with my Silhouette, using a freebie Studio Calico digital file that I received ages ago. Doing this isn't very tricky, if you have Photoshop. You can simply save the digital file as a PNG, erase whatever you don't want from the background, then save and drag the file into your Silhouette software to trace. 

After I cut the word "beautiful" from cardstock twice, I adhered the two pieces together, so that my stencil could be a bit thicker. I then adhered the stencil to my background cardstock using temporary adhesive, and colored three different spoonfuls of modeling paste with pink, yellow and teal spray ink, filling in my stencil and picking it up as soon as I was done. 

However, I wasn't too happy with the edges of my word. The stencil wasn't close enough to my background cardstock, causing some of the modeling paste to seep out from the edges. How did I fix this?

I didn't want to do it over again, especially since the stencil was a "one time use" item, so I just waited for it to dry, then cut the word out, cutting off the messy edges! I then adhered it to my new white background cardstock and finished off the page. Since I'm not the messiest scrapbooker, I opted to use vellum die-cuts and stamped ink blots instead of actually making them myself with ink! 

I absolutely love this colorful page, with a lot of white space, just like my daughter's artwork in the photo above. If you're like me, and are not a messy, mixed media scrapbooker, be brave and try this stencil technique this weekend! Also, be sure to check out the other awesome layouts in the stencil section of Jot Magazine issue 14! 

Have a great one, and happy creating!