Chicago Workshop

I was in Chicago this week teaching an amazing group of ladies formed of teachers, store owners and reps. We had fun working with metals and Stencils, provided by Lynell Harlow of Dreamweaver, who also attended the workshop.

Pewter Necklace

This was one of the projects done in Pewter. We used the background Mosaic stencil LJ901, paper stump, Basic kit and Patina.

These 4 other necklace samples were done with our Embossing Plates for Backgrounds and pewter.

Heart Whimsy

This was the first project (out of 6) the group did.  They used Red Aluminum and Stencils LL599 and  LG628.  I love the contrast between the red plain color and the Dogwood Background stencil.

They used  the following MercArt's products: Basic Kit, paper stump, Screw and Cup Stamping Tool, Fiber Glass, Red Aluminum and suede.  Other items: sanding block to remove the color off the background and main embossed areas.

Thank you ladies for a wonderful workshop. You are a very talented goup of artists!

Mini Books

We had a booth at the Great American Scrapbook Convention in Arlington Tx. One of the projects for the Make-it Take-it we had this year were these mini composition books. 
We covered them with colored  aluminum. People were able to choose the color and the stencil (by Dreamweaver and Tessler)they wanted to use as a design.
For backgrounds we also used some of Dreamweaver's stencils and our embossing background plates.

Let me remind you the main steps for working with stencils and color aluminum:

1) Place the stencil on the colored side of the aluminum .

2) Turn the metal and place the stencil and metal over the glass or acrylic.

3) Rub with a paper stump against  the stencil  to "see" the design.

4) Outline the design with the Teflon D-04.

5) Create a border with any of our "Decorative Wheels". Use it on the suede.

6) Turn the metal (to the front/color side) and flatten with the paper stump any bump or wrinkle in the aluminum.

7) Place the metal (color side up) on the embossing plate or the background stencil and rub firmly against it with the paper stump until you  get all the "background" textures on the metal.

8) Remove the color from the embossed areas by sanding the metal (manicure sanding block).

9)Turn the metal and place it on the suede.  Push the metal in the specific areas to be embossed. Use the appropiate size of Cup and Ball to "puff" the metal.

10) Add "Filling paste" to the embossed areas if necessary.

11)It's ready to be glued to any surface, such as the mini composition books shown.