Julia's September Stencil Release - Thankful & Blessed

It's still blazing hot here in Missouri, but my new garden is showing the telltale signs that fall is just around the corner: the bright colors have faded, and lush petals have given way to a carpet of texture, punctuated with fuzzy grasses and spiky remains of coreopsis and cone flowers.

Fall is my favorite time of year, not only because it brings relief from our relentless summer heat and humidity, but also because it marks the start of the holiday season. I'm already eagerly planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas - the many family and friends I'll gather, the decorations I'll put up, and, of course, the countless cookies I'll bake and decorate! 

I bet you're just as excited to see the fall cookie season commence! (I mean, what cookie decorator wouldn't be?!) If I've got your number, then please read on to see what goodies I'm releasing this month . . .

• Thankful & Blessed Dynamic Duos^TM Background Set (upper left),
• Thankful & Blessed Dynamic Duos^TM Message and Frame Set (combined with the Duos^TM background set in the upper right),
• My partner Confection Couture's Harvest Bouquet Basic Accent Stencil (lower right), and
• My Woodland Turkey Prettier Plaques^TM Set (a previously released Thanksgiving set, and quite possibly my all-time favorite set ever; lower left).

Of course, my stencil partner and I have launched several other Thanksgiving and fall-themed stencils over the last year or so. You can find all of them here and here.

If you're in my Stencil of the Month Club, this month you'll get both my Thankful & Blessed Dynamic Duos^TM Background Set and Confection Couture's Harvest Bouquet Basic Accent Stencil - a $22.99 value for only $14.99. As long as you stay a member, you will also get 15% off anything else on the Confection Couture site! If you're the visual type, here's this month's offering in a single snapshot:

This month's Duos^TM sets were born of my desire to convey a harvest wreath on a door - just the sort of the warm welcome I love to see when visiting family and friends at Thanksgiving. During the design process, that door turned into a wood grain pattern (as the door was otherwise hard to distinguish as wood). The wreath also turned into a partial wreath or swag, so more detail could be shown within the wreath itself (laser-cutting does have some size constraints!). I also threw in a few solitary leaves to allow for everything from very simple designs (that might just include a leaf or two) to the most complicated fully layered effects. But, let's move forward, and I'll show you what I mean about that range . . .

First, let's explore the background set in more detail. Here's what it contains:

Thankful & Blessed Dynamic Duos^TM Background Set (6 pieces)
And here are just some of the options you can make with this set:

Admittedly, the three cookies to the left are all rather jazzy! (I don't call myself a "more-is-more" person for nothing! ) In each of those cases, I not only used the wood grain background along with the swag foreground element, but I also embellished with wafer paper leaves (made with the same stencil) and chocolate bows! But . . . if you look to the far right, you'll see a small round cookie with just one small leaf and a suggestion of the swag. Of course, you could also eliminate the wood grain altogether, and end up with an even simpler look.

Before I talk about the message and frame set, and all the added designs it affords, here's a closer look at one of the dimensional cookies . . .

I iced this cookie with pale ivory icing, but I also used light brown and white icing on some of the others to create subtle color variations across the set. Next, I airbrushed the wood grain with AmeriMist Gold coloring. Then, I airbrushed the swag with a combination of Chefmaster Harvest Brown for the pine cones, twigs, and acorn "caps"; Chefmaster Sunset Orange and Super Red for the maple leaves and berries; and AmeriMist Avocado and Electric Green for the rounder leaves and acorn "berries" (or "pericarp", for those acorn anatomy geeks!). The same orange and red colorings were used with the small solo leaf stencils to create the wafer paper leaves on top.

BTW, that lovely turkey place card (two photos up) comes from Hester & Cook, one of my favorite suppliers of paper products for holiday table settings.

Now, what about the message and frame set? Glad you asked!

Thankful & Blessed Dynamic Duos^TM Message and Frame Set (7 pieces)

As you can see, it offers a wealth of message and frame options - four of each, to be exact! Below is just one of many possible message configurations. (Remember, messages and frames can be mixed and matched.)

And here's a slightly closer view . . .

Before I leave you to browse my fall stencil selections, I want to remind you that any of these frames can be paired with custom name stencils to turn these designs into Thanksgiving place cards! Remember, last year I did just this with my Woodland Turkey Prettier Plaques^TM Set:

But how would you go about getting a custom stencil? As luck would have it, my stencil partner, Confection Couture Stencils, now takes custom orders. Simply send them the names you need (along with a font style and maximum stencil length to fit your chosen frame), and they should be able to oblige, perhaps with a little design give-and-take. Here's the page on their site where you can submit custom order requests: https://www.confectioncoutures...stom-cookie-stencils

And, with the following brief recap, I conclude my September release! I hope you enjoyed it! 'Til next month, happy stenciling!

• To purchase my Dynamic Duos^TM sets, click here.
• To join my Stencil of the Month Club, click here.
• To see my entire stencil line, including my Prettier Plaques^TM sets, click here.
• To view my videos that show how to create layered looks with my stencil sets, click here.

If you have any technical questions about these stencils, please don't hesitate to email me at sweetlife@juliausher.com or to leave a comment below. Please, however, direct all ordering and Club questions to my stencil partner, Confection Couture Stencils, at service@confectioncouturestencils.com. Thank you!