Paintstiks, Part 3

Interweave was having a sale recently and I took the opportunity to purchase a couple more accessories for my Paintstiks. First, I bought the Grip-n-Grip mat. What a weird name, but I really like the product.

It is a smooth, firm mat that you put underneath your fabric to hold it in place while you are painting on it. This is to be used instead of taping your fabric down. What a time saver! And I think it works better than taping. When I did the pieces I showed yesterday using the rubbing plates, I had to tape down three sides of the fabric and slide my hand underneath the fourth side to move the plate around. This was not easy and I ended up distorting my fabric a little in the process. I don't think it mattered for those pieces, but using this mat would have made the project easier. (I didn't use the mat because I did those projects on Thursday and this didn't arrive until Friday afternoon.)

The second thing I got was a new book with a stencil set. The book is called Design Magic by Shelly Stokes.

In the book she shows you how to make your own stencils in this style using freezer paper. However, I think her premade, transparent plastic stencils are probably easier to use, at least for a first project with this method. If you decide to buy the book, I recommend you look for a book/stencil set like I got. It is so nice to be able to open the book, read a few pages and start on a project. Making the stencils yourself doesn't look to hard, but I bet it is time consuming. Probably well worth the trouble to make one of a kind fabric, but not for trying out the process to see if you like it. This book also contains projects in addition to information on how to use her new stencils.

This is one thing you can make with the stencils that come with the book. She also has several other sets of stencils you can purchase and I probably will at some point.

There are two stencils per set, one is the negative of the other. Her instructions are quite clear on how to prepare your fabric (just press a few registration lines) and how to line up the stencils and interchange them so that you get great designs like these.

Another thing I really like about the book is that she shows you how to clean your stencil brushes. I have never used oil paints before and had no idea how to properly clean my stencil brushes and her first book didn't say much more than be sure to clean your brushes when you are finished.

Well, that is the last of my recent Paintstik projects. I haven't done anything with these yet because they are still curing. You have to let the pieces cure/dry for 3 to 7 days and then heat set them. I will probably heat set them today.