The Blazonry Stencil

Cocoa Daisy included the 6×6 Balzer Designs Blazonry Stencil...

...in their May “Graffiti Bridge” kit. They asked a bunch of cool folks to create something using the stencil as part of a "Designer Challenge." The only guidelines were to make sure and highlight the stencil in their work.  And they did a great job!  Take a peek...

This super layout is by Leslie Ashe:

I love how Lesley traced the stencil and created so much movement with dots and dashes.

This stunning layout is by Magda Bolinska, also known as mumkaa:

She used the stencil in so many ways -- traced, sprayed, stamped.  I adore all the layers and the energy of the layout!

Roben-Marie Smith made this amazing gift bag:

She traced the stenciled design, cut out the pieces and stitched them onto a paper bag.  Wouldn't you love to get the bag as much as the gift inside?

This cool card is from Mou Saha:

And she and I must be channeling each other because I recently made this tag...

...using the same technique.  We even both used orange colored pencils to color in the wonky checkerboard!  While I'm showing you tags, here are a few others I made using the Blazonry stencil:

It's one of my favorite stencils because of its extreme versatility.  Case in point: this gorgeous tag from Tammy Tutterow:

She has step-by-step directions on her blog.

I was wondering how Tammy was going to make such a bold and modern design work for her shabby chic style and she did it beautifully!  Remember, stencils are tools -- make them work for you!

Paula Gilarde made two colorful and modern cards from tags:

I love how Paula uses restraint and white space (something I find so difficult) in her designs.

Finally, here is a layout that I put together at my Mom's house, using whatever ancient scrapbooking supplies I could find lying around plus the Blazonry stencil: 

I used watercolor to lay down some sloppy color through the stencil and then I traced a few of the pod shapes with a black pen.  It was definitely weird scrapping without my go-to supplies, but I think it was good for me.  I did a lot more layering than usual (all the tape and journaling cards and other bits) and overall I'm pleased with how the layout turned out.

I hope that you feel inspired by all of the cool designer projects.  And remember, if you make anything with the Blazonry stencil (or any other Balzer Designs stencil), I'd love it if you'd put an image in the Balzer Designs flickr pool!

Thanks for stopping by!

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P.S. I was interested in reading all the answers to last Thursday's question and next week I'll have several posts addressing your answers.  In the meantime, the winner of the "Wedding Ring" stencil in 6x6 and 12x12 is...

Congratulations, Keitha!  E-mail me with your mailing address and I'll get those stencils out to you ASAP!