It's that time again... my quarterly Paint & Texture column is up over on the StencilGirl blog. This month I'm using my Boho Faces stencil with paint and stitching to show how thread (and a few beads, of course,) is a great way to add texture to your artwork. Head on over and check it out! I've got a free photo tutorial showing how the painted and embroidered face focal point came together.

And if you like this project, you may also be interested in my next Live online class, Make a Statement - it's this Saturday, April 24th, at 1pm Eastern time (but you can watch the archived version at any time as long as you register in advance.) The samples are mixed media statement jewelry, but you can just create the components and use them for other projects if jewelry isn't your thing. Hope to see you there!

I'm delighted to announce my third live online class, POCKETbook. I'm offering this class in partnership with my local store, Artistic Artifacts in Alexandria, VA.

In the POCKETbook workshop we'll be making a 5" x 7" handmade book with embellished paper and / or fabric pockets as the pages. The class includes tutorials, patterns, exclusive downloads, and, of course, the live online class. It's all hosted in a private Facebook group, and registration is open now.

Signups have begun and we'll start adding students into the private Facebook group on April 16th. The live class is on Saturday, May 9th, from 1-3:30pm eastern time. I hope to see some of you there!

Hi all, it's time for my quarterly column on StencilGirl Talk - I have a new mixed media project and tutorial available showing how I complete this piece, "Butterfly Medallion," from start to finish:

You can head on over to see the whole thing, including close-ups of the finished piece. It's also linked from my Tutorials page.

For those who might be interested, the original is also now available for sale in my shop.

I'm excited to share that I have five new stencil designs available today from StencilGirl! I've added three new stencils to my Chinese Garden series as well as two new Collage Textures & Patterns options.

These new designs all feature imagery that I love and use in my own work and as always, they're heavily influenced by my travels.

The Chinese Garden - Buddha, Lotus, and Koi stencils were inspired by my visits to various gardens and temples throughout Asia. The Buddha was directly taken from a pastel portrait in one of my art journals and the design of the Lotus stencil was inspired by a woodblock I found in India. Although the Koi are reminiscent of many places I've been fortunate enough to visit, my main inspiration came from a gorgeous and peaceful garden that appeared as the unexpected finish to a very long, hot, and unbelievably crowded hike through Xiang Jia Jie National Park in China. It was an incredible oasis in the midst of one of the most amazing settings I've ever seen.

​Here you can see a few of the ways that I've been using the new designs:

In this piece, I've used the Lotus stencil as a pattern to create a highly layered and textured piece with a lot of fabric and a bit of embroidery.

The Collage Textures and Patterns - Medieval Cyrillic stencil was partially inspired by several semesters of Russian language study in grad school, but more particularly by a once-in-a-lifetime journey through Russia on the Trans Siberian Railroad. We stopped nearly every day to go into various cities where I was fortunate enough to visit many Orthodox churches and cathedrals as well as a few museums - all full of the most gorgeous art, especially icons. Many of the icons feature writing and much of it is ornate and beautifully ornamental.

The characters in this stencil are mainly comprised of combinations of different Cyrillic letters and, although it doesn't really say anything, I love using it for texture and pattern in my backgrounds. You can see this stencil sprinkled through the mini accordion art journal shared below along with the Collage Textures and Patterns - Leaves stencil which was inspired by wallpaper and upholstery in one of my favorite buildings near where I used to live in Utah.

​Click on any of the images to see the whole thing or to see it larger.

I hope you enjoy the new stencils as much as I do. You can find all of my stencils, including the new designs, now available in my shop.

Hi all, I just wanted to pop in and let you know that I have a new post up today on StencilGirl Talk - it's my quarterly column on Paint and Texture with your stencils. This month I'm sharing a tutorial for this collaged and highly textured "Art Card."

Make sure to head over to the StencilGirl blog to see the whole post with a step-by-step tutorial. As always, an index of all of my mixed media tutorials is also available here on my website as a reference.