The Spectacular StencilGirl® Squared Off Swap Hop

Hello and welcome! You have arrived at one of the blogs participating in the fabulous and exciting StencilGirl® Creative Team’s SpectacularSquared-Off Swap Hop.

You have arrived at my - Claudia's - blog now. 

Lovely Carol who coordinates the StencilGirl® design team, organised a swap of paper squares the design team made using StencilGirl® stencils (of course) and the challenge was to create something from the papers each of us got back in exchange for the four papers given into the pot.
The results of this swap are being shared today via our "Spectacular StencilGirl® Blog Hop" and I hope that at least some of the fun we all had becomes visible to you too.

I got four paper squares from lovely Trena Brannon, Jill McDowell, Debi Adams and Sunila and Aditi Maheijan and getting a mix of very lively and colourful papers meant a real challenge for me - but hey - you know me - if there is a challenge I will always try to rise up to it and give my very best. ;)
And that "very best" looks like this:

I call it "The Happy Home" and it can be used as a paper weight or simply put on display as a home decoration piece to look at (to make you feel happy of course).

A happy home to me is a home that is surrounded by lovely trees that have birds sitting in them, singing lovely songs. It is a place you love to come home to and that already makes you happy when you see it from the outside.

The effect that I created reminds me a bit of trees that have become "victims" of some happy "guerilla knitters". Guerilla knitting is also known as "yarn bombing", "kniffiti" (as it is street art much like graffiti) or "urban knitting".

It always makes me happy when I see park benches, trees or sometimes also scaffolds right in Vienna's grey and noisy city being turned into colourful objects. Sadly I myself am not good enough and way too slow a knitter to do this - but it always puts a smile on my face when I see kniffiti in my hometown. But at least I now have my own (tiny) kniffiti decorated trees at home on my desk...

The papers I got from my lovely team mates looked like this:

Loads of different patterns and colours! Perfect for creating a "stencilled kniffiti" effect. ;)

I always have some wooden houses (for altering) in my stash (I always buy any I find in sales sections of home decor stores) and I started with priming my house with two thorough coats of DecoArt Americana Chalky Finish paint "lace".

Then I cut the papers into strips and rectangles of various sizes...

...and collaged these to all the sides of the little house using matte DecoArt Decou-Page.

The result was very colourful and to cover most of it up by adding white Gesso on top really needed a lot of bravery to be honest ;)

I used the beautiful "Leafy Trees Arch" mask designed by Valerie Sjodin and two coats of DecoArt media white Gesso that I applied with a cosmetic sponge.

A single tree on the back and two trees (to put a door between them) on the front.

I also applied more white Gesso around all the house's edges.

Then it was time to add a little quote and a bird. I used a PITT Artist Pen to draw the bird on the branch and a black Stabilo aquarellable pencil to shade in the word tiles. 

A small door shape (from Calico Craft Parts) was covered with a scrap of the papers I got and glued in place. Done!

The papers I had sent over to Carol for the swap were some of these (honestly I don't remember exactly which ones I picked at the end). But I am already veeeery curious to find out who got them and what my teamies did with them....
I have also included some pictures of my happy messy Gelli Plate session. There's a list of the stencils shown and used at the bottom of my post.

StencilGirl® stencils I have used:

Oval Shapes from the "Playtime" Collection
Dune Grass Mask
Fallen Leaves
Deconstructed Zinnia Mask
Curves
Ski Lift Works
Wall of Words

And now it is time for you to hop on, get inspired and have a lot of fun! 

(and maybe even become a prize winner...)

The more blogs you comment on the more chances you have a chance to win one of four $25 gift certificates for stencils from StencilGirl® Products. Comment by May 3, 2019. Winner notified by email May 6^th.

Dots2Lines, Aditi & Sunila Mahajan

Natalie May

Trena Brannon

Sandee Setliff

Kristin Peterson

Tina Walker

Claudia Neubacher (you are now here)

Katie Lamb

Jill McDowell

Kristin Williams

Debi Adams

Silvia Souza

Cheetarah Cheeda

Louise Nelson

Hugs and happy hopping (and crafting of course)!

Claudia

xxx