Welcome to the Stencil Test Drive...!!!

Hey there everyone!  Today is the official start of my friend Jessica Sporn's Stencil Test Drive - Yeayyy!!!  I've been playing with Jessica's Hebrew Calligraphy Stencil with Hamsa, which looks like this....

The text on this stencil is this beautiful blessing:

May God bless you and keep you
May God cause the divine light to shine upon you and be gracious to you
May God turn toward you, and grant you peace
(Numbers 6: 24-26)

Here's a little tutorial about how I used it in my Book of Days Journal:

I started with a heavy coat of red, orange and magenta acrylic paint, and then used gesso and a foam brush to stencil the design onto both pages...

 GASP!  How gorgeous is this design?!!!  The stencil is so beautiful I didn't even want to touch it at this point!  But alas, I did - ha.  Had to force myself to, cuz I had an idea...

 I wanted to create a sunset scene, so I cut a big circle out of cardstock, and used it to paint some gold acrylic over the top of the design...

 

Then I added some miscellaneous collage bits, and a quote I'd been thinking about; 

and this is my finished page...

This has become one of my favorite recent pages. I love the idea that god's blessing is there in the background, as encouragement.

I had some leftover paint on the stencil, so I grabbed a tag, splashed some orange paint on it, and then turned the stencil over, and rubbed the extra paint onto the tag by pressing on the back of the stencil with my fingers..

 You can't necessarily tell what the design is anymore, but what a beautiful background it makes!  This tag is all set to finish off with a quote or focal image!

I wanted to try using the stencil as more of a subtle background, so I made another page.  This one is also in my Book of Days.  It's a check-in on my word for 2012, which is "Peace."  After I created a background on this page, I added in just bits of the stencil here and there with blue paint...

 They are subtle, but add extra texture, which is just what I wanted; because I was planning to do a lot of writing on this page.  I also wrote the word peace with blue paint, and used some hand-carved stamps to make the hanging beads.

 Here's the finished page...

 I can already tell I am going to be using this stencil ALOT!  Journaling is such a spiritual thing for me, and having this blessing on any page would give it extra depth.  Plus, it's just such a beautiful design!

I hope I've given you some ideas for how to use the Hebrew Calligraphy stencil!  

Please check out Jessica's blog, and the other two Test Drivers, to see what they did with this stencil too! 

 Jessica Sporn Designs

A Colorful Journey (Carolyn Dube)

The Key to my Art (Judy Shea) 

If you'd like to purchase the stencil, click here to go to Stencil Girl Products!



Thanks so much for visiting!  I will see you again soon!