Stenciled Mosaic Technique

This technique was inspired by an old rubber stamp I have in my collection...it's a mosaic of various images in lots of little squares.  I believe it was an old Hero Arts stamp but I couldn't find it on-line anywhere... 

The inspiration I got from that stamp was that I thought it would be fun to create a multi color tile mosaic card with a stenciled focal point.  The key...stenciling the different colored tiles all at one time otherwise you'd spend a very LONG time trying to stencil each color of cardstock separately then piecing the various colors together.  Far too much work, I knew there had to be an easier and quicker way to do it.

So, these are the basic tools...cardstock squares or almost squares...they don't have to be perfect a stencil or two; temporary adhesive & ink and paint.  That's basically it until you finish off the card.

Affix the squares to a scrap piece of paper with temporary adhesive.

We're only using the paper to hold the squares in position while we stencil them so no worries about sticking them down really good or getting ink/paint off the edges of the cardstock.

Now if you'd like you can stencil the background with a pattern you like...

this isn't necessary but I'm not good with lots of "white" space. 

I always want to go back and fill it in with something.

Now begin stenciling on your main design or images. 

I'm using a cheap flower stencil I found at Wal-Mart. 

Use whatever you have.

I stenciled some going one direction....

I used white paint and a bit of sponge

Then cleaned and flipped the stencil over so some of the flowers were going in the other direction.

And here's what it looks like at this point.

Next I went back over the flowers and added a bit of ink over the white to add some depth.

I then trimmed the edges of the cardstock until it was just a bit smaller than the size I need for my finished card.

Next I carefully peeled off each square of cardstock; applied some glue and stuck them down to a sheet of white cardstock leaving a 1/16th-1/8th gap between each "tile".

Here are all of the tiles in their new home...

I matted it with black and mounted it onto a blue card panel.

I then added some pen work around each flower.

Next, I stamped and added a sentiment (JFF Stamps).

NOTE - I tried stamping it directly on the card but it got lost in all the details so I stamped it on white, matted and mounted it to the card.

As a finishing touch I added Waterfall Stickles to each flower where the blue ink had been previously added.

So there you go....

the

Stenciled Mosaic Technique!

Now of course you don't have to use squares, you could use any shapes you want.  The important part is that they each fit together when you're stenciling so you can pull them back apart and mount them with the lines between each tile.

If you don't like the multi color tile idea you of course could stencil a solid sheet of cardstock and cut it up into your squares.

Tag, you're it....

it's your turn to create!