Welcome to Stencil Week! I’ve got 8 new stencils out at StencilGirl and I want to celebrate!  How do I celebrate?  With a new video Monday – Friday this week and a stencil giveaway everyday!  5 new videos and 5 giveaways!  Be sure to stop back every day to get yourself entered to win!

I’m kicking off the week with  Diamond Waves and a rainbow of colors!  In the video, I also show how easy it was to keep the colors from mixing together. Masking things off has to be quick and easy for me since I am patience impaired.

It’s obvious I am patience impaired for those of you here on Sunday night since I was just too excited to wait until Monday morning to make this go live!

Want to see all the new designs right now? Pop on over to StencilGirl to check them all out.

I’ve had lots of people ask about the j hooks I add to my stencils for storage.  There are 2 places I get them:  at Uline and J Hooks from Amazon (the ones at Amazon go in and out of availability).

You can watch  Stencil with a quick mask on YouTube here.

The giveaway is now closed.

Want to win this stencil?  I am giving away one of these stencils to a randomly selected winner!  To be entered all you need to do is leave a comment telling me your favorite color of the rainbow.

Want another chance to win?  Just share it (Facebook, Google Plus, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.) and come back and leave another comment tell me where you shared it!

I’ll be announcing all the randomly selected winners from Stencil Week next Friday, Jan. 31st. right here.  Be sure to be entered before random.org  picks the winners for your chance to win!  And yes, international folks are eligible too!

My art was trying to tell me something, a message I needed to hear.  One that has been told to me before but oh do I struggle with this message.   It was a bad day.  The kind of day where the gremlins were pummeling me with cruel comments and harsh words.  I am not a fan of feeling down and defeated so I turned to my art journal to help me connect with my emotions.

I decided to play with a Spark of Art-spiration I had printed out. I saw a figure standing in the paint so I cut her out and glued it all down.

The body language of this girl mirrored how I was feeling. The person had so much to tell me.

*I send downloadable Sparks of Art-spiration out every month in my newsletters.  If you’d like to download and play, you can sign up for my free newsletter here.

Now all that white space was not going to last long. I smeared colors of paint around.  Just smushing and sliding that color lightened my heart and helped me stand just a little taller.

But I just couldn’t touch that white line between the girl and other part of the Spark paper.

I addd a scrap of the Spark down at the bottom for balance I thought.  But that isn’t why the art wanted me to put it there.

It was so I would find the word I needed to hear. The message my heart needed to be reminded of yet again.  The word  was connect.

Then I used a white Stabilo pencil to write all over the bottom of the  page. Fast, furious, scribble journaling to let me get my feelings out.  No editing.  No grammar rules.  No fear of misspelling a word.  Just my raw feelings.

Letting it out brought me the message.  I needed to connect with my friends so they could help get me through a dark day.  When I feel alone I have such a hard time reaching out and asking for help.  Every time I have ever asked for help from a friend, that friend has gladly given. I am so thankful to my art journal for reminding me of just what I needed to hear.

Sharing with my friends at  Paint Party Friday, Creative Every Day, SimonSaysStamp (anything goes), and Art Journal Every Day.