It’s really funny how most everything old becomes new again.  Card making is no different.  Stencils are back, although for some, they really never left.  I love stencils because they are a relatively cheap way to add to your craft stash, and there are so many ways that they can be used.  Even better, you can actually make your own for almost nothing if you have a cutting machine.

(Side note…to make my own stencils, I use dollar store plastic notebook dividers and my Silhouette Cameo machine.  You can find so many basic shapes in the design store, or even make your own.  This plastic material cuts beautifully using the stencil material cut settings already set in your machine.)

I had already made a few stencils several weeks ago, so I decided to give one of them a try…a balloon stencil.

Here’s what I came up with…

This one was really simple to make, but I just love the bright colors with the black & white sentiment.

Using my home made balloon stencil, I ink blended 5 balloons using Worn Lipstick, Peacock Feathers, Squeezed Lemonade, Spiced Marmalade and Wilted Violet Distress Oxides.  I love the fact that no masking is needed.  It’s perfectly okay, in fact it’s more realistic, to have the balloons peeking through.  Once the balloons were dry, I drew the strings with a Micron marker and a ruler.

All that was left was die cutting my Celebrate sentiment using Neat & Tangled’s Celebrate die with black and white scrap card stock and stamping the smaller sentiment using Winnie & Walter’s Sentimental: Gift stamp set.  The final step was to pop the Celebrate die cut with some dimensional tape.

Thanks for stopping by!