Design Inspiration. Planet Stencil Library.

A stencilled wedding no 3

In the early 1980's, before I was a stenciller, I wanted to be a wedding planner.  I don't think there was such a thing then. I had certainly never heard of one.  The business advisors, friends and family that I spoke to said "It won't work, every one wants to plan their own wedding or get their mothers to do it."  I listened and never followed up my idea. Now the wedding planning and styling industry is huge and does not include me!  I do love it when I am asked to help though, as was the case with the lovely Lee & Will.  The setting was a grand country house hotel in January.  Lee wanted the plainess taking from the tables.  The tablescapes were my gift to the newlyweds and there were a lot of tables so my budget was going to rely on imagination.  I bought masses of gold organza and cut a length to drape across every table.  The fabric was stencilled with sprigs of blossom to complement the colours of the bride's flowers. I used Liquitex paints for all the surfaces. The stencil was JA121 Bird and Blossom, without the bird.

  Several IKEA glass plates and bowls were bought to hold candles and flowers.  The intention was to stencil the underside of the glass and then gild it.  My gilding attempts were not my best so I stencilled then sprayed the underside of the glass with gold spray instead.  It blended beautifully with the gold of the organza. The picture shows the stencilling before the gold background was added.  This is something that can be done as a temporary decoration for special occasions, food and paint are separated by glass and the decoration can be scrubbed off afterwards.  I bought a proper church candle to sit on each of the glass plates and stencilled them with the same blossom along with the initials of the bride and goom and the date of the wedding. After firmly attaching the candles to the plates I poured water into them and floated flower heads.    Surrounding the cake were lots of matching small bowls all carrying a single flower head. It sat on top of more gold organza.  This time the stencil was JA47 Cherry Blossom  but I stuck with the same colours.  

My contributuon to the decoration was simple but really added to the beauty of the day.  The hotel asked me if I would be interested in styling for them as part of their wedding package.  You bet!!!

  ...They never called me.

Rachel made a stunning job of the table tops at her sisters wedding, again a combination of stencil and organza was employed.  She mentioned it in her monogram post.   Stencilled monograms are great for a wedding and we get some very challenging ones to create.  When Chips and I got married Rachel stencilled cherry blossom over several England flags and hung them from the sides of the wedding tent at our reception. It only took her a couple of hours and made a world of difference to the setting.  The desert buffet was housed in a stencilled pavilion,  on the day it looked fab but got trashed by a wayward chocolate fountain and lives no more.

On a smaller but no less important scale, we often create stencils for customers invitations and their cakes, I shall look for pictures and customer permission then share them with you another time. Helen.

Framing the ancestors

I found this image in the World Of Interiors magazine.  It was photographed by the homeowner Rene Stoeltie.  The Stoelties have written many lovely books on interiors.  Although I could find nothing in the text to explain the portrait in this shot it appears to be pasted to the wall with a frame hand painted around it.

Which is just what you would do with our Print Room Swag stencil. The frames are stencilled onto the walls and the portraits (photocopies not originals!!!!) are cut to fit them. Nifty huh?  Helen.

New Stencils from Country by Mail, Sweden

We've written before about the Swedish Mail order company, Country by Mail.  We had discovered them because we were supplying stencils to them and upon browsing their web-site, found that they had all sorts of wonderful home accessories.  If you are a fan of that pale, slightly shabby chic Scandanavian style, then this is the site for you.  Recently, we had designed some custom stencils for them to sell and I thought I would share them with you.  I am particularly fond of this recipe for apple pie in French.  I think it would look great in a kitchen along with our Shaker style Basket of apples stencil:

Here are a few other of the new stencils we made for them.  We made 5 different latin herb names, but I am only showing one example.  You can see the others on their site.

If you like them, you will have to purchase them from Country by Mail.  They ship worldwide.  Their site is in Swedish, but despite only knowing one word of Swedish myself, I did not find it a problem to navigate.  To see the stencil section, simply click on "Schabloner".  Also, they speak perfect English so if you have any enquiries or need help, you can e-mail them [email protected].

We recently added a new range called "In Your Own Words" to our site which is a range of over 40 different fonts and you can have us make up your favourite quote or saying or name as a stencil if you fancy having your own text in your decor.  Rachel.

Vera Wang's fab frock

Regular readers and friends will know that Rachel and I love to stencil our clothes.  I was overjoyed to see that Vera Wang may have been flourishing a stencil brush on this fab frock.  It is featured in her advert for Princess Perfume. Stencilling clothes is both satisfying and easy. If Vera's dress does nor suit your shape or budget, you could stencil your own creation. For a similar look try one of our swags and stencil it with Liquitex acrylic in Titanium White .  I just looked through our catalogue and would probably choose NC115, a versatile pearl border.  We even have a nifty skull and crossbone stencil should you have the hat to decorate.  The tassels on Vera's stencil are fairly similar to a design I bought many years ago for my FIRST ever stencilled clothing project. I used the tassel with the rope from TP18. Here I am wearing it sometime in the late 1980's. I was going to my friend Sylvia's wedding.  I still have the jacket! Helen

PS. I still have the hat too.

Stencilling with Blacklight Paints

If the thought of blacklight conjurs up images of dodgy nightclubs in the 80's, think again.  Jeff Raum of Muracles (who we have featured in a previous post) sent us photos work he had just finished in a bowling alley using blacklight paint with our stencils.

Jeff chose to use MD79 Starburst, MD72 Time Tunnel, MD71 Nebula, MD74 Black Hole and MD75 Galaxy in different sizes and all from the motif section of our Modern Design range.

It is a very cool effect we had first seen used by Gary Lord of Prismatic Painting Studio on his booth for last year's SALI convention (also using some of our stencils).  He had tented his entire booth in stencilled black fabric so that you got the full effect when you entered.  He sells the blacklight paints, stating that they are excellent for use in children's rooms, bowling alleys, night clubs, media rooms and restaurants.  The beauty of them is that they will show up under any light, but really flouresce when under true ultraviolet black light.

As an added dimension, Prismatic Painting have also created special 3D glasses so when viewed wearing them, the stencilling will float at different depths.  Mind blowing!

These would only work well in certain commercial spaces or children's rooms, but in those places, what a fantastic and fun variation on straight stencilling. Rachel.

How To: stencil With Oil Crayons

Oil crayons are sold in art stores, stencil shops and at The Stencil Library .  They are an oil based paint in stick form. Turpentine, mineral or white spirit is the solvent that is used to clean your brushes and stencils afterwards.  The crayons have a protective skin on them which re-grows if the crayon has not been used for a while.   Break this by rubbing the crayon firmly onto a plate or other non-porous surface.  Use the plate as a palette and scribble the colour onto it.  Take up the paint by circling a stencil brush into the paint. Then apply the brush to the stencil.  You will need a brush for every colour that you are using.

If the surface needs to be varnished once the stencilling has been applied, wait a couple of days before doing so.  Stencilling with oils sticks takes longer to dry than stencilling with paint.  H.

The beginning of Larger Than Life stencils now online

We will expand this range in the future, but decided to launch a dozen of the stencils now as we are so excited about what can be created with these designs.  Larger than Life is a range of stencils, mostly natural subjects, in larger-than-life scale.  Most of the stencils come as sheets of component parts that allow you to create your own arrangement.  The minimum height of these stencils is about 3 feet, but can be built up to heights of 8-10 feet and beyond in many cases, so they are not for the faint-hearted.  You can either cover entire walls or simply create a feature in one area.

So far, Larger than Life includes blossom (a few different versions), grasses, dandelion, dianthus, honeysuckle, chives, wisteria, two palm trees, leaves and bur-reed and fireworks.  OK, so the fireworks aren't exactly a natural subject, but it is such a great design we had to include it in the range.  Each design comes in two sizes, they can be used separately or together.

This photo shows an example of both sizes of the LTL4 Dandelion stencil: The text is from our In Your Own Words range.

And this photo shows an example of both sizes of the LTL5 Ornamental Grasses stencil.  The design has been stencilled on both the wall and the cupboard:

I hope you like the new range as much as we do.  We recently wrote a post about decorating our back hallway with LTL1 Oriental Blossom, another post using the LTL12 Leaves stencil as well as a post showing Helen's ball skirt stencilled with LTL11 Wisteria.  We shall be posting more projects using these fantastic stencils so keep in touch with our blog. Rachel.

HOW TO: Stencil with water-based paint

Stenciling with paint is an easily acquired skill. It requires that the artist uses very little paint.  This is how we stencil at The Stencil Library.   

We usually recommend a light misting of spray repositioning adhesive onto the back of your stencil to hold it in place. Use the lid of the paint pot as a palette. When this is not possible, pour a little paint onto a plate.  Dip a stencil brush into the surface of the paint (so that just the tips of the bristles become coated) then rub the loaded brush firmly in a circular motion onto paper towel.

This is to evenly distribute the colour throughout the bristles, but also to work the paint well into the brush.  Find a clean patch of towel and work the paint a little more to dry the ends of the bristles.  The paint should be damp not wet.  Practice the following test until you are familiar with your chosen paint. Tap the brush onto scrap paper and run your finger over the mark that it leaves,  if the imprint is clean and clear with no smudge you are ready to stencil.  The paint is usually applied in one of two ways.  To stipple is to apply the paint through the stencil with a gentle tapping motion.  Make sure that your brush is at right angles to the stencil. 

 

Another stencilling technique is swirling, the paint is 'tickled' onto the surface with a light circling motion of the brush.  Add a second light layer for depth of colour or shading.  A combination of both techniques can be used.

I prefer to use the larger sizes in the stencil brushes that we offer as it saves on effort.  I use the  small brush size for details and edging.  When planning your project, bear in mind that you will need a clean, dry stencil brush for every selected colour.  If using our recommended paint, your brushes should clean easily with hot soapy water.  To remove tougher paint or dried on colour, use our brush scrubber, they are cheap and brilliant!  Make sure the brush is dry before it's next use. Helen

My birthday dinner

I love creating 'tablescapes' whether we are eating inside or in the garden.  A master of this art is Preston Bailey and he indirectly influenced the birthday dinner table.  I wanted to create an enchanted forest in my dining room.  Now the room is fairly small so I thought a buffet would be set up in the room and individual small tables would be placed among trees planted in buckets and bedecked with white mini lights.  The starting point was this picture from Preston's book.  In fairness to Mr Bailey, the only similarity between the two schemes were trees and atmosphere.  Chips started to get suspicious when he found the gardener lopping the tops from the laburnum trees.  Chips does not approve when I 'transform' the house for parties as it usually means mess for him to clear up afterwards.  This time he was a total spoilsport and forbade the enchanted forest on the grounds of health and safety!

"You'll have someone's eye out with those branches".  So creativity was reigned in and I modified the idea.  The guests were limited to ten. Two trees were wedged in place between two large, glass tables.  I took an idea from the book and ruched and bunched black linen sheets on the table top. I then found all the sparkly things I could lay my mitts on and strew them artfully over the table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rachel said it looked like I'd chucked the contents of my handbag on it, but I assure you it was neater than that.  I wanted the room and the guests to glitter.  A revolving mirror ball on the floor threw speckles of light around the room and candles were set inside glasses and on mirror cake stands all over the table.  Chandelier drops and crystal ornaments hung from the branches of the trees.  I bought cheap glass plates from IKEA. It was less than £5.00 for ten plates and that was the only item bought for the occasion.  Garden flowers were floated in shallow bowls.  No one recognised these snow drops because one always sees them from above.

Aren't they fab?  Hellebores are another bloom best appreciated floating. Our guests didn't care that my cooking is not brilliant - they never do.  On some occasions our guests actually cook the meal!  The room looked much prettier than my pictures show. Here is one view of the table  and this is the opposite direction.   So you see that the enchanted forest was thinned to become an enchanted twig!

The next tablescape is a cherry blossom celebration planned for May. Can't wait. Helen