Stenciled Plate

A week and a half ago, I took one of my 4 year old twins on a mommy-daughter date.  She had been feeling left out of things for a while...her twin sister and her older brother have both been going to occupational therapy for a few months now (for their Sensory Processing Disorder), and while it truly is *work* for them, to her...well, it just looks like she's missing out on all the fun!  She peers through the glass on the door at the O.T. office, and sees the big gym, with the giant therapy balls, the multiple types of therapy swings, the rope ladder, the tunnel slides, the ball pit, the mats everywhere, all the bright colors...and she just thinks she is somehow getting the short end of the deal.

Thus her special day was born.  I love that my daughter shares my love of art, and so our first and longest stop of the day was at a local "paint your own pottery" place.  She had never done this before, and I wasn't sure how she would do.  True to her personality, she struggled with taking direction from the store owner...she is fiercely independent and wanted to do it her OWN way.  She chose to paint a 2-part cupcake - one with a top and a bottom, which she can hide her tiny treasures in.

I had a hard time choosing my own piece, but finally settled on a large plate.  I had some ideas about what I might want to do - but the owner looked at me a little bit strangely when I set my things down on the table and pulled out about 30 stencils (mostly from The Crafter's Workshop!) and started rifling through them trying to decide which to use.  She acted as if she'd never seen a stencil before!  I finally decided on my stencil, and picked my colors of paint.  Then when I told her I thought I would use a make-up sponge to apply the paint, she REALLY disagreed vehemently...practically said it just wasn't going to work.  She kept telling me how "different" this was than other kinds of painting.  And she just didn't see how I was going to manage the stencil with the plate.  She also wanted me to apply the paint to the sponge with the paint brush, rather than dipping the sponge in the paint and tapping it off, which is what I wanted to do.  Because I try to be cooperative, I gave that a try...and it did NOT work...so I went straight to the way I learned from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer...dip the sponge into the paint, then dab it off on a paper, then apply the paint to the stencil.  It worked just fine!  I thought it was so funny how she kept being so discouraging and seemed so rigid about how things had to be done!

Anyway, today I went and picked up my plate...and I just LOVE how it turned out!  When the owner asked which projects I was picking up, I told her "a plate and a cupcake."  She asked which plate it was, and I said, "The one with the peacock feathers."  There was another lady there who said, "OH, the beautiful one!"  The owner, however, said nothing...just brought it to me.  Ha ha...I think she's still holding a grudge against me for using a stencil and a makeup sponge!

The stencil I used is Peacock Feathers, a Balzer Designs stencil made by The Crafter's Workshop.  It is available in both 6"x6" and 12"x12" (which is what I used).  If you've never checked out the stencils from TCW, you MUST - they have TONS of fabulous designs...I can't stop collecting them!  Seriously, though, I used their stencils several times a week in my art journals, or on canvases, on scrapbook pages, on tags...on plates...LOL.  And they have some incredible new ones coming out really soon - check out their blog! 

{My daughter loved her cupcake too...so much so that the minute we got home, she rushed it up to her room before I could even get a picture of it, and now the girls are sleeping...and I'm not about to wake them up!  So hopefully I can add a pic of her cupcake later!}