Quilting Time

Are you ready? A guest post from my dear friend Elaine Elwick Barr!
Sometimes in the winter, I like to make comfort food. Something warm, familiar, delicious…but not all appetites can be fulfilled with food alone. Some need hands on, rock and roll crafting. And I had that hunger bad. I took a look at the variety and selection of Stencil1 stencils I own, including images from the first book, Stencil 101, the second book, Stencil 201, the home decor book, Stencil 101 Decor, and a whole host of the original mylar stencils. What could I make that could include alllll of these great images and maybe even keep me warm during this winter cold snap. QUILT!

Okay, I’ll admit I’ve stayed far away from quilt making in the past. Too much precision and too many rules, that’s what I thought. But I don’t care much for rules and perfection these days. I like what I make to look like I made it. So I went full steam ahead.

Since there are so many images to choose from, I took on a theme. This one is Stencil 1 Creatures..featuring some of my favorite birds, horses and the monkey in the middle. To make the quilt, you’ll need some fabric squares to stencil on, an old bed sheet, twice the size of your finished blanket, an old blanket or quilt batting, some Stencil 1 sprays, an iron and a sewing machine. I cut all of the squares, from coordinating fabric, and one by one, stenciled each, using Stencil 1 sprays. Each square gets heat set quickly with a warm iron.

Craft you later,

Elaine E. Barr

Blog; http://rocknrollcrafts.blogspot.com/

Etsy Shop:  http://tinyurl.com/ebarresty

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ElaineBarrDesigns

Design with Soul

I often create a new stencil based on a trend I see but sometimes I just have to make something with personal meaning. My Ranchero stencil for example was my late Father’s car (truck?) and when he passed I inherited this hot rod of a car! Living in Brooklyn with a boat of a car that gets 12 miles per gallon, she’s now out of my life but I had many a joy ride in this car with my Dad. What’s nice is a lot of people seem to like this stencil as well. I think when you design from the heart, it gives your design life.  That’s my 2 cents for the day! Yee-haw!

A Visit to Flavor Paper

If Andy Warhol was to make a wallpaper company, Flavor Paper would be his new factory. Flavor Paper offers the most unique designs in wall paper and I just had to get a closer look at the place. I contacted Jon Sherman, the humble owner and designer and he was super generous with his time.  The Cobble Hill business is in a modernized 4 story building that was once a parking garage. We met in the showroom on the second floor where you can view very large samples on a hanging system similar to how large rugs hang in some stores. Jon told me that years ago a wallpaper company was going under and the owner was literally burning all his machinery and stock. Jon stepped in and bought the business, learned the wallpaper silk screening process and continued the legacy. We flipped through all the designs and I flipped out over so many of them! Repeat bananas on metallic foil?! Realistic wall murals of graffiti tagged concrete walls! But by far my favorite are the clever takes on traditional toile. So rather than seeing a repeat of oh I don’t know a couple in powdered wigs and a pile of fruits on a platter, instead in their Wythe Toile you see Brooklyn imagery of water towers, street signs, and a Williamsburg iconic church (Wythe is a street name in Williamsburg). I saw this beautiful paper applied in the rooms at the Wythe Hotel for which Dan Funderburgh created it for.   There’s another Brooklyn Toile, commisioned by Mike Diamond of the Beastie Boys, with images of Biggie, the Cyclone at Coney Island, and the Brooklyn Bridge (design by Revolver New York.  I want!

So we headed downstairs to the main floor where they hand silk-screen the wallpaper.  Three guys were printing and they have the process down to a science. The long table sucks the paper down with air while the screen gets placed over the paper and then two guys hand squeegy the ink, move to the next spot and so on. You can choose any color for your paper as they work from the screens, just endless possibilities.

Well, as a stencil designer I often achieve wallpaper effects with repeat pattern stencils but this place opened my eyes to some amazing designs unachievable by stenciling. Makes me wanna design wallpaper. Hmmm? Stay tuned on that one!

Visit the Flavor Paper site to see all the designs and enjoy my somewhat blurry pics below!

CHA 2013 with Plaid

I was asked by Plaid Enterprises to lead some stencil demos and make-and-takes at the Winter 2013 CHA in California and I of course said YES! It is so great to get away from my daily design tasks and be creative with people.  The Plaid booth was decked out with so many fun examples of what you can make with their products, everything from ModPodged frames to glitter covered bowling trophies, super fun stuff. Well, my project was stenciling mason jars with Folk Art enamel paint and these awesome sticky stencils. The creative folks at Plaid painted an area of the jar with chalkboard paint for labeling the jar contents, people ate that up. The stencils we used are sort of like ColorForms material, remember those? Well, they are rubbery and wrap around surfaces easily and remain sticky after you wash them!  I got to chat with people as they stenciled words or other iconic images onto the jars, it was gratifying to say the least.

My booth mates and new BFF’s were Jade Harrington of JaderBomb, Rachel Faucet of HandMade Charlotte, and the ever popular Cathie and Steve of Creative Juice. Handmade Charlotte is a must see line of stencils with a sweet retro, indie feel the them, I especially love the campfire theme! Beckie Farrant, blogger and sweetheart also lead some crafts in the booth.  And Cathie and Steve are the mad minds behind this new development for Mod Podge, Mod Podge Meltables. Fun silicon mold designs that you fill with this melted formula using a hot glue gun and the Mod Podge Meltables sticks(no it’s not glue and i’s not Mod Podge). So no more resin mixing mess! Dries in minutes and can be painted – ENDLESS USES! Blogger and smartie Heather Man of Dollar Store Crafts posted this great video of C&S doing a demo here. Notice below my pic with Glossy, the Mod Podge mascot, she’s pretty sassy.

Oh and I got to meet the Graphics Fairy, Karen Watson, bestower of free graphics, a humble and sweet doll of a gal. And ran into my fav craft gals Vickie Howell and Kathy Cano Murillo, both always fun and spreading the creative energy.  Also got paid a visit by Miss Erica Domesek of PS-I Made This who ps… has a new book coming out soon!

The best of all is we all had great food and drinks and drinks and drinks each night and I can gleefully say I got to know this group pretty well. FAMILY was a word that kept coming up. I was grateful to be a part of the Plaid weave and you may be hearing more about my adoption into this family, stay tuned!

Then I headed off in a rental car to Los Feliz to unwind, see some cool street art, eat tacos, then head back to Brooklyn.  A great West Coast visit! Well, In the mean time, enjoy my pics below!

Put Some Love Into It!

It’s that time of year when you want to say to your besties or loved one those three special words I WANT GIFTS. No, just kidding, I LOVE YOU!  Nothing shows how much you care about someone more than when you make them something and with all our heart themed stencils you can make something very cool for them like a card, a piece of art, a t-shirt, whatever your HEART desires!

Happy Valentine’s Day, put all your love into it!