Stencil Color Wash Technique {PP247}

Happy Sunday everyone....sorry I am a little late with my card for The Paper Players.  Sometimes life just gets in the way of stampin', right?  We're wrapping up the school year here and there are TONS of activities and events going on!  Anyway, lovely Laurie is hosting a fun Tic-Tac-Toe challenge this week...check it out:

Oh the possibilities!  I used the far right column: sequins, flower, any shade of yellow.  When I thought about making this card I knew two things I wanted to do--try a stencil technique--Color Wash--(don't know the name of it so I made one up!) and use lots of white space. Laurie is the master of making colors pop by using lots of white space and I wanted to try to emulate her style with today's card:

I've been seeing this stencil technique all over blogland--even my Paper Player friend, Sandy used it too! I'm not sure how others do it--sprtizing or sponging--but I found sponging the color gave me the soft look I was going for.  I used the pretty fancy fan stencil from one of the retiring SU kits, Hooray It's Your Day.  I laid it over the Whisper White cardstock and taped the edges to my work surface with painter's tape (easily removable).  The idea with this technique is to provide a soft wash of color that fades at the edges so I swiped across the stencil with my Crushed Curry ink and then went back over the center a few times to darken the middle. Here's a closer look:

With all the white space, I really wanted to use pops of color so each of the other elements--flower, stems and sentiment--is a separate color.  Keeping it to three follows the design principle of three elements to maintain balance.  I used Calypso Coral for the flower, Cucumber Crush (new!) for the leaves and Soft Sky for the sentiment banner.  Oh, and another sneak peek is the Triple Banner Punch I used to quickly flag the end of the sentiment banner!  Yep, with the new catalog we will have a quick and easy way to snips those banners--and it makes three sizes!  

 Lastly, I want to show you a close-up of the stitching.  Stitching the edge adds just a little bit of detail and texture which really makes the center panel stand out from the base layer--even though they are the same color.  If sewing isn't your thing, you could achieve the same look with paper piercing , a border punch or doodling some faux stitches!
 
That's it for me today....since this is late I want to get it posted asap!  Please be sure to check out the rest of the lovely creations from my Paper Players teammates.  We hope you will join in the Tic-Tac-Toe fun before Laurie's challenge ends on Friday, June 5th at Noon (PST).  Thanks for stopping by!

The Paper Players Design Team

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile
Claire Broadwater
 Jaydee
Joanne James
Laurie Schmidt 
LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy
Sandy Mathis 
Debbie Mageed
Karren Johnson
Shannon Jaramillo