Art Journal Challenge week 3 and 4 Fun with Words, Hidden Doors & Stencil Sandwich!

Last week one of our participants created a beautiful page with circles drawn on it and her words inside each circle. It inspired me to re-tool my idea for this week , which is to be about 'closure'. Her work made me think of 'stops' along life's path....or obstacles that might be tripping us up.

I knew that wanted to create little 'doors' that we will journal behind about issues in our lives that need closure and then close them up! (Moving on!!!!) I loved the look of the circles, so I made my doors 'portals' but for your assignment, your 'doors' can be any shape...rectangles, leaf shapes, whatever means something to you!

One of my favorite products we have discussed before, is Tumble Dye spray fabric dye. I love it, we use it in a lot of our canvases in our parties. I love that the colors stay separate, they dry quickly and you can cover a lot of area in a short amount of time. You can purchase this product at Hobby Lobby on the tie dye aisle. Each bottle is 2.99 and lasts a very long time. They do have a tendency to get clogged up, so I usually keep a little spray bottle of alcohol nearby that I can remove the sprayer, put into the alcohol and spray the alcohol through to unclog. It works every time.


I'm going to start pushing you guys to try some new techniques...this week we are going to work with a 'stencil sandwich'.  You don't have to use real stencils....any patterned things with punched out holes will work. IE: lace, shelf liner, doilies, sink mat, plastic canvas shapes, heavy paper with cut out or punched out designs, wooden or cardboard die cuts...whatever you can find!  This process will really only work with fabric dyes though, so you will need to choose 2 or 3 colors that work well together. I used teal, blue and hot pink. DO NOT USE COMPLIMENTARY COLORS, they will turn into brown.
Avoid these combinations
Green and Red
Orange and Blue
Yellow and Purple.

My process
I punched out 3 circles with a large punch and placed them on the work surface.
I layered stencils over the entire work surface, going right over the circles. I did not tack down the circles, because I am spraying over, they will not slide around like they would if I were brushing or pouncing over them.

Some of the stencils I used for my stencil sandwich...you can't see the plastic canvas circles and the doilies (they are underneath the other stencils).

I had placed a plastic canvas disc over each of the punched out circles. Because they will become my 'doors', they needed to have some fun pattern on them too!

Here is my completed background. It still needed something so I laid down a wooden word by Heidi Swapp (scrapbooking aisle at both Michael's and Hobby Lobby)  and sprayed over that too across the right bottom corner.

Now I was ready to begin my journal entries.....I wrote about each of the 3 things in my life that need some closure...because these topics are likely to be super private for each of us, we won't share photos of those journal writings (unless you just really want to.)


I laid my circular 'doors' back over their spots and then sprayed some black 'Spray Webbing' all over the place. I love black spray webbing, it gives a look that you can't get with any other product.

Finally, I attached my 'doors' over my secret journal writings and created a little hinge with some washi tape. You could use any kind of tape or glue, just make sure you allow room for the door to open to reveal your entire journal entry!

Have fun with your stencil sandwich and creating doors for hidden writings!!!