Hello crafty friends. Well we’re officially in a heatwave here – and the May temperature records could be broken tomorrow! Apparently it’s hotter here than in the Seychelles! It’s the perfect time to stay indoors and craft and I took the opportunity to play with the April Craft Club stencil, featuring just one of the Hippie Chicks & Friends on my card.

I started with a square from one of the Landscape Backdrop prints (I cut the 7×7 card into quarters), lined my stencil character up onto it and used low tack tape to mask the others off.

I isolated each section of my little lade with more low tack tape, so that I could sponge the colours onto her without contaminating the other areas – I went with ‘picked raspberry’ Distress Oxide for her skirt and top, then ‘peeled paint’ for her hat and shoes (I ran a bit more tape across her face when I did the hat, as I didn’t want her to look like an alien!) Once I’d got the colour down, I ran round the stencil outline with a micron pen, then lifted it all off.

I needed to give her some ground to stand on, so used the grassy area of the Deerscape mask, sponging more of the ‘peeled paint’ across it, then using the ‘nougat’ Polychromo pencil to shade below her feet.

I added a little more shade to the base of her top and the top of her skirt with a pink Polychromo, then also scribbled a few lines onto her skirt to give it a bit more depth. After stamping one of the Art Deco Sentiments next to her I added a mount of Indian Summer companion paper that I’d edged with a black Sharpie and a ruler. I embossed a frame onto a 5×5 card blank using a square embedder and a ball tool and sat her neatly inside it.

So, what do you think of my pretty lady out for a Sunday stroll? She definitely needs that hat on with the strong sunshine and heat this weekend! She’s now off to make an appearance in a couple challenge galleries – Stencil Fun and Allsorts.