Zentangle stencil

I didn't realise how often I used zentangle in my cards - I must be going through a phase.  Stencils are also a great starting place for zentangling.  Here I used the Claritystamp checkerboard stencil and teamed it up with Woodware chess stamps which included the greeting.

Before I started I drew round the bottom 2 layers of the chessboard in pencil and stamped in the appropriate places.  I then laid the stencil back over and went round all the checkerboard squares using pen but without going over the chess pieces.  I added lines to the chess pieces as the stamps are only outlines, then zentangled all the 'black' squares of the chess board.  I repeated the same pattern more than once in different areas of the board to tie the whole thing together.


Once I had finished zentangling, I replaced the stencil and masked off the lower area so that I could lightly brush Black Soot distress ink over the top section.  Having stamped the sentiment using black Archival ink, I trimmed the card to the same size as the stencil (7"x7") and rounded the corners.  I then matted it onto black card and trimmed 1/4" edge on all sides - again rounding the corners.  Finally the whole thing was mounted onto a 8"x8" white card and the corners were rounded to match.  This is a nice flat card for posting - as it was being sent to my brother in Canada for his birthday.