Pretty Puzzle Pieces

Happy Friday! I'm posting today with a puzzling project! Hopefully I will explain it clear enough that it won't actually puzzle you, but that you'll want to try one on your own.

This week the Stampendous team has been putting the pieces together with Stampendous products and these uniquely amazing puzzle sets by Patty Pop Ons®.

PRIZES!!!! Comment along the hops that include Patty Pop On Blank Puzzle Pieces and you could be one of THREE lucky winners! A prize package that includes a surprise Stampendous Cling Stamp Set and a full set of puzzle pieces!  

Here is the hop list (I'll give you the next person on the hop at the end of my post) so you can get starting hopping from here wherever you want to go!

Stampendous Blog

Janelle Stollfus

Kristine Reynolds

Pam Bray

Lea Fritts

Laura Drahozal

Wendy Price

Now for the fun part with a disclaimer. I did do a little testing with ink and pens and markers, but I didn't do a lot of thinking on my finished design soooooo it's a little messy. You have been warned.

Let's get started with the steps and supplies are at the end of the post.

1. For my project I removed a column of puzzle pieces to make it a square puzzle.
2. Apply painters tape around the edge of the puzzle and then taped the middle of the puzzle using the edge tape as a guide. 
3. Remove the tape and begin airbrushing YG13 green marker as a base color and with a Chevron stencil. 
4. Stencil around edges with Holly Swirls Stencil with YG09 and R12, R29 markers. (shown below).

5. Tape over stenciled edge and remove tape from center.
6. Stencil Snow/spatter stencil with red and green. Repeat with Gradutated Dots stencil.

7. Stamp Christmastide stamp with Versafine ink. Sprinkle with embossing powder on each individual puzzle piece that has sentiment and heat emboss VERY CAREFULLY. You'll warp the puzzle piece if you do.

8. Stencil Antler snowflake. I did them in black and that came with issues. I used my Copic Original black marker which seemed to spray more ink than the Sketch ones and also black is highly saturated it goes a long way. Use a very light spray and cover the whole puzzle before airbrushing a small stencil. Or any stencil. I didn't and you'll see why on the finished piece.

9. Use black marker to freehand a border line between the holly swirls and the dots.

10. Clean stencils with isopropyl alcohol inside a shallow flat pan. Gently brush off marker ink and dry on a flat surface with soft towel or paper towels.

That's it! Can you see the black smudges all over the white area? Airbrushing sends out very small undetectable to the naked eye, drops of ink, don't try to fix smudges or you will end up smearing them into a mess. Don't use anything to clean them up, just incorporate them somehow.

All that said, I really like how my puzzle turned out. I think it will go under the tree as a Christmas activity until Santa brings the presents.

Your next hop is over to Kristine Reynolds blog.

Supplies:

Stampendous:
M327 ChristmasTide Stamp
DWLL399 Antler Snowflake Stencil
LX7026 Chevron Stencil
DWLJ878 Snow Splatter Stencil
DWLX7029 Graduated Dot
DWLJ891 Holly Swirls Stencil
DP111 Detail Black Embossing Powder
STF082 Versafine Onyx Black Ink Pad by Tsukineko
Plus:
Patty Pop Ons® 3-inch 12 piece Blank Puzzle Piece Set
Painters Tape
Heat Gun
Markers by Copic® (100, R12, R29, YG09, YG13)
Airbrush Kit

Instructions: Inline with the post.