GIVEAWAY and Dreamweaver Thursday Tutorial

Hello everyone!  It’s Taylor here today, with a great Dreamweaver Thursday tutorial (and giveaway!).  My teammates, along with the amazing artists on the Dreamweaver’s team, have been sharing some marvelous ways to use the stencils, pastes, and powders available from Dreamweaver Stencils. Today I’m going to take things in a different direction, and share one of my favorite things to do…create CAS card sets.  Stencils really make this easy (and fun!) to do!

The first thing I did was machine emboss a kraft panel.   it’s important to never use warped plates when you machine emboss, so I opted to use my Vagabond machine (my Cuttlebug plates are slightly warped).  To emboss the stencil, I used this sandwich: base plate for the Vagabond, Solo Shim, one clear plate, stencil (with stencil id/info face down), my card stock, several pieces of card stock shim (I also add a piece of chipboard – it’s from the back of a legal pad, cut to size), a tan embossing mat, and my top clear plate.  The “sandwich” varies depending on the machine you use – take a look at this tutorial on basic machine embossing, and this one on machine embossing and the ink transfer technique.  Because my panel was smaller than the stencil, I added a small piece of clear tape to hold it in place.  Also, for a deeper impression, you can spritz your card stock with rubbing alcohol prior to running it through the machine.  I did not do that for this tutorial.

Next, before removing the stencil from the card stock, I sponged on Distress ink right over top of the LJ911 Gears stencil I used.

I cut my panel (which was originally 3 3/4″ x 5″) into smaller panels, and whipped up two different CAS cards.  The possibilities for this are endless – you can cut your panels to whatever size you’d like, and use whatever color combination you can think of!  This one is different than the first one I shared at the top of this post.

Here is yet another way you can use the stencils to create CAS cards.  For this one, I simply laid the stencil on my card and embossed the entire front panel.  I love this LJ882 Diamond Grid stencil – it is SO pretty.

See how lovely it looks close up?  How would you like to WIN one of these stencils (or any other stencil of your choice)?  Head over to the Dreamweaver Stencils site, and choose a stencil you would like to win.  Leave a comment here for an opportunity to win it!  You have two weeks to comment here for your chance (open to residents of the US and Canada only).  Congratulations to the winner from Cherylynn Moser’s tutorial, Leslie Turner, who will receive the LL3023 Tall Poppy stencil!

Also, be sure to check out the Dream It Up! blog for more inspiration using the stencils, and the Dreamweaver Stencils Facebook page!