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A coven of beech trees

I am really enjoying this whole Halloween thing.  Three posts inspired by it this week!
I thought I would share these pictures that Chips and I took recently in some bushes at Levens Hall, Cumbria.

Yes, I'm afraid that's what some middle aged couples do in bushes, they photograph them!
Don't the branches make the most fabulous shapes and patterns?

I thought this one looked like a javelin thrower with a very bad hair do.  You don't get that?  No one in my office saw it either.

To me they look like the hair and fingers of witches from the storybooks of my childhood.

I thought they were wonderfully spooky and were it not for fear of arrest, I could have stayed in the bushes for hours.  Levens Hall has one of the finest topiary gardens in the world along with the best preserved collection of leather wallpaper...but that can wait for another day.  We have a lovely, large stencil of tree silhouettes and this link will take you there.

If you like your halloween images a little more perky then I hope you enjoy this chap,

I found him at the Globe and Mail newspaper via Reuters. What a brilliant face.

Helen

More halloween vibe

I have visited family both in America and Canada at halloween.  I have mixed feelings about the celebration.  I am not comfortable with trick or treat, because I don't really understand it.  Whilst my family happily fill  bowls with candy for visiting children, I want to hide, preferably taking the candy with me.

Now, wearing weird clothes, decorating the garden and public spaces with autmnal fruit and ghost related ephemera totally appeals and if it is finished off with a family friendly party then so much the better.  Rachel is in America staying with family at present and she is looking forward to celebrating Halloween with her five year old niece.  The British nation does not really 'do' halloween.  It is slowly sneaking in and I shall do my bit by posting halloweeny things this week.

The picture above comes from the October issue of Ladies Home Journal.  They used two of our designs and a paper doily to stencil these pumpkins.

I am tempted to have a go at gourd decorating as stencilling might be easier than carving.  Here is a detail showing one of the LHJ team stencilling cherry blossom onto the pumkin.  I would reccomend using a larger brush than the one in the picture.  The magazine gave instruction on many aspects of veggie decorating along with some ghoulish (not goulash) recipes.

Photos for LHJ by Aimee Herring.

Helen

Revisiting Polyvore for Halloween

 

Regular readers may remember that in March I stumbled upon a site called Polyvore.  Their readers were making collages based around stencil of my face and I found this rather spooky.  My face was leading a more exciting life than I was.  I was alerted to Polyvore again last week as tableaux are being created incorporating our swallow stencil.  'Polyvorians' create art from thousands of different sources.  Some of the finished pieces entertain me and others leave me, well, confused.

 

This was my original photograph as it appears on our website.  It demonstrated the application of the stencil on various surfaces.  You get three birds on the stencil and arrange them to make a flock. Apparently, the correct collective noun for is a 'flight' or a 'gulp' of swallows.  However it appears that my stencilled swallows took flight from my photo and landed in this picture created by Katarina-Kaja.

and this by Hilart

There are many others but I felt that these two were suitably halloweenish to share this week

and the following two I think are rather sweet. The first is by MeRyLu

and the second one by Sasssyweeet

Continuing on a bird theme, do you like this dress designed by Comrags?

 I saw it in the Globe and Mail newspaper in Canada last week. In my mind I have already created an evening dress combining fake birds on wire (featherweight of course) and Chinoiserie panel stencils.  Comrag's dress was designed for Fashion Cares. Their annual event is held in Toronto this Saturday.

Helen

I can't find it!

I bought a copy of The Guardian today, but I can't find anything about us in it (see yesterday's postings).  One of our blog readers read it on line, but I can find no pictures with the online version....unless I am being thick.  Am I?

Wear your art on your street

For those of you that like stencilled street art, there is a photo safari in Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY today. I found the link via the New York Times Urban Eye magazine.  Here's what they say,  "Organized by the folks behind the blog Streetsy.  They lead you on a tour of the best graffiti, you photograph it, and then show it off in a slideshow at a happy hour afterward; the best shots win prizes. The best blisters win sympathy"

Many of the photos I saw were taken by Jake Dobkin including the bag of leaves featured above.  It is tagged by an artist called Shinshin.

Helen

The Guardian this weekend

I spent yesterday climbing over photographer's equipment and dispensing cake and coffee to the lovely Brent Darby and his assistant Sarah.  In this picture, I was photographing them photographing my stencilled bathroom.  Brent works for several publications.  I'll let you know where and when the results of this one will appear.

Meanwhile, Rachel and I were interviewed by Hannah Booth for The Guardian a few weeks ago.  The pictures were taken by Michael Franke and the feature should appear in their Saturday magazine tomorrow.  If our portraits are as entertaining as the one's on Michael's website, I'll be well chuffed! I'll be off to buy a copy first thing. Helen

Bonnie's Bathroom

It seems to be the season for sharing stencilled 'smallest room' pictures.  Rachel and I were thrilled to receive photographs from Bonnie Fulks of Bonzart studios in Cape Coral, Florida.

Bonnie troweled two colours of Lusterstone onto the walls of this bathroon to give it a soft metallic texture.  On top of that, she stencilled our MD68 Crescent using bronze paint. 

Bonnie started Bonzart in 1999.  She told me   "I used to be a business analyst for Freddie Mac and I wanted to turn my life around and do more of what made me happy in life.  So far it has worked, painting is easy......creativity is the name of the game with this job!!  I travel from Cape Coral, Florida which is right by Sanibel Island to Leesburg, Virginia to satisfy my customers needs." 

Whilst writing this post, I received some more photos from Bonnie.  They show a project that she is currently working on using the Big and Bold Decorating Masks. 

This design is Concentric Circles .  She told me that it had been quite a challenge, but I see from the pictures that she did a brilliant job.

Helen

Planes and boats and trains

Rachel and I are away on holiday.  She flew to Florida, USA earlier this morning and I leave for British Columbia, Canada in a few hours. Our colleagues at The Stencil Library will help with your stencilling enquiries and blog questions, but posting may be very sparse for the next two weeks.
 
We leave you with a picture of our Vintage Transport stencil from our online exclusives range.  Hopefully we will find exciting things on our travels to inspire you with! Helen.

An Autumn tea party

In one of last weeks post I told you that my mother had a big birthday at the end of September. Friends and family pitched in to make it special.
Invitations were stencilled and delivered.

Rooms were decorated

balloons were inflated

and hung along the front of the house

cakes were baked, sandwiches were filled, champagne was poured

calendulas floated in cake stands

and in bowls in the garden

a garden parasol was stencilled with Japanese Birds and Blossom

and tents were assembled

photographs were taken

and the birthday girl had a lovely day.

Thank you to all who celebrated with us.

And Happy Birthday to all of you having a birthday today and Happy Thursday to those who are not.

Plaster Relief

At the weekend Di Overton of the fabulous Designers Block blog called me. 

 "Can you show me how to stencil with plaster?", she said.

I had not used plaster for years, but as we have just bought a new cutter to make heavy duty stencils for plastering, I thought it was a good time to experiment. 

Once our aprons were on, we applied a slight spray of repositiong adhesive to the back of our stencils, pressed them into place and started to wipe a plaster mixture over our stencils. 

We used a stiff spatula.  Years ago I would have used a cake icing knife, both tools are satisfactory.

After smoothing on the mixture then roughing up the surface we carefully lifted the stencils to reveal a crisp edged motif with rough textured relief.  The designs that we used were JA74 and JA82, both in the small size and both from the Japanese stencils collection at The Stencil Library.

 

The mixture was given to me several years ago and is a product called Versiplast I bought it from faux by Kathy in America.

I had heard good reports of the product and was not disappointed.  On her first attempt, Di got exactly the look that she wanted in less than five minutes. 

Bouyed up by the success, we then mixed up some grey exterior Polyfiller and pasted it through NC6 Blossom.  Not such a good result, although I may have been at fault in the mixing of it.  Di is going to use ready mixed white Polyfiller for her stencilling.  For those in the US, I would recommend the Versiplast.  Di has ordered LTL leaves from our Larger than Life collection of stencils.  I will not tell you what she is going to do with it.  I'll wait until the photo's arrive and then I'll show you.  It should be wonderful and I am excited to see the finished result.  Does anyone have tips to share on stencilling with plaster?  I know some of my readers are expert with this medium, so please leave a comment.