As I look out the window, it’s truly starting to look like winter here in central Minnesota. We’ve got a fresh coating of snow and the air is full of big, fluffy snowflakes. It’s a perfect day to think about decorating for the holidays and it looks like weather this Thanksgiving weekend will be more suitable for hibernating in the sewing room than fighting the crowds at the shopping malls.
So I’ll pull out the paintstiks and a couple of our new sets of stencils and have some fun playing with gift bags and some simple decorations for the holidays. My graphic artist extraordinaire, Matthew Mills, did a fantastic job pulling some great images together for these stencils. The Ornaments are very classy and the variety of sizes works for large images and small. I hope you enjoy the new stencil designs as much as I do!
Ornaments Stencils
The Ornaments stencils are really gorgeous. There are two large ornaments, several medium-size ornaments, and a series of small, old-fashioned images that are cuter than a button. Here’s a little project I put together for one of our ads.
I use one of the large ornaments and an Iridescent Light Gold (yellow) paintstik to add a large image to one block, and some light shadowy images to the small vertical strip on the left.
The second large ornament is another great image. I added the bow from the other stencil sheet as it was sized to fit both. To make this sample, I picked out a bunch of primary colors and used post-it notes to mask off the various areas white I was painting. It’s a bit more time-consuming that using a single color, but it’s quite fun to see what can be done with a little patience.
And I just love these little gems. My assistant Leanne really wanted to include a few of the old-fashioned ornaments for borders and small projects. If you shade the color around the opening instead of coloring it in solid, these are just precious!
What will you make with paintstiks today?
There are just tons of possibilities for these stencils. I’m thinking about a simple set of placemats and napkins for our table and some cards for my sisters.
If you give a lot of gift cards, hop over to Jen Mason’s blog at Cloth Paper Scissors for instructions on how to make these lovely little gift card holders. Stencil the fabric with ornaments and they’ll be perfect for Chirstmas!
Love the look of your pieces and a good way to get the batik look, without wax.
I hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Debbie
I really like the ornament block….it is beautiful. Paintstiks are so much fun 🙂
Kelly
Thanks, Kelly! The ornaments are really beautiful. Matthew did a great job on the designs.
Shelly
I’d love to know how the background for this piece was created!!!!!
Hi Martha, stop back to the blog and see my answer to Sam…
Love it! And, the background, as well. Is the background a placemat or something you’ve made?
Hi Sam,
Thanks for the comments on the ornament piece. I have to admit that I cheated on the background. I made up the little ornament quilt for the ad. Then I attached it to the front of one of my finished pieces because it made the perfect frame for the photo. (And now you know another insider secret to the photos created for ads…)
The background is from my Rough Around the Edges series. They are made from narrow strips of hand dyed fabric with one raw (fuzzy) edge. It’s like a big log cabin block except that the raw edges are left on the surface. It’s a quilt as you go technique that I taught BP. (That’s Before Paintstiks.) I can put this on the list for a blog post if you like.
Shelly
PLEASE DO! Would love to know more about the technique. Thanks so much!
YES, Please!! Are there other resources for this technique that might save you the trouble of creating the post???
Unfortunately I don’t have any other materials that I can reference. This is a technique that I created in order to make a dent in my bins of narrow dyed fabric strips. (I have quite a collection from my 7 years of making and selling hand-dyed fabric.) I’ll try to get a post put together soon.