I'm sharing some cards I made a few weeks ago using the ever so fabulous and big and bold Holiday Icons Stencil from Kristina Werner, now that the stencil is back in stock! I fell in love with this stencil as soon as I saw Kristina's samples - the bold geometric icons in the super-size she made them as great for a modern twist on Christmas.
One of the things I love about Kristina's large stencil packs is that as they are so wide, you can make two cards from one stencil. So that's what I did here. I took 5 of the 6 stencils, layered each up and used oxide inks with Waffle Flower Crafts shader brushes (FYI - I was rubbish at getting a good blend before these second generation brushes came out - the bristles are sooooo soft that they hold and blend to perfection - if you've struggled with blending backgrounds or stencils before then try these brushes!) The smaller brushes let you control what colour goes where so I skipped one of the shades in the candy canes for example. I used the bigger original blending brushes for the background layer for speed inking!
I cut the inked panel into two to create two cards - added a simple stamped sentiment to the left, and a double stacked die cut and matching double card strip on the other to show you can go simple or fancy once you've made your stencilled panel.
For the third card, I used the 6th stencil which just has the outline so you can do a quick one colour background, but I thought it would be PERFECT in paste.
I love, love, love how it turned out - and it was pretty quick (part from drying time) so good for batch making Christmas cards that still look super special. I used Altenew's Enchanted Gold Shimmer Relief Paste over a kraft card base as I like the colour combo but am going to try other pastes on other cards for fun too! To finish the card off I added a double stacked Merry Christmas sentiment (the paste is thick so the double-stack helps make the sentiment pop) and added a strip of the same coloured card to be a simple border on the left edge.
I took a close up and an angle so you can see how thick and shimmery it is in real life.
If you struggle spreading paste - my top tip is to use a small icing spatula - these have a "bend" in them and the angle really helps spread pastes smoothly. You can pick them up pretty cheaply on Amazon.
Hope that's given you a few ideas to try.
Happy Crafting!
Tara
