Monday, October 23, 2023

Stenciled "Zine" Challenge: Reiki Daily Prayer



I always love Tina Walker's art challenges, and I joined her "Zine" challenge without knowing what a Zine was. It turns out that it is a special way of folding a sheet of paper into 8 parts, cutting the paper partially in the middle, and then folding it so you have 4 back to back pages.

I took some lightweight paper (mine was 14" x 20" but you can use any size) and stenciled all over with an assortment of my own stencils in pastel colors. Here's my process:


I started with my Tossed Poppies stencil and light aqua paint





I added stencils from my Wyatt ATC Mix Up stencil in a variety of pastel shades.
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Once I had the background done and the book folded and glued, I had a 5" x 7" book with 8 pages. 

I was ready for the next stage. I decided to stencil images that would illustrate the Reiki Daily Prayer. I used a Versamark stamp pad with gold embossing powder on tissue paper, then cut the excess blank paper from the images, and glued them to the pages.

I chose the Crown Chakra stencil by Kathryn Costa for my cover. You can find all the other stencils I used on the StencilGirl website.
















After all the tissue paper images with gold embossing were glued, I printed the Reiki Daily Prayer on thin tracing paper from my laser printer, carefully cut the words, and glued them in place.

Here's how the finished pages look next to each other:

Front cover (right) and back cover (left)




And here's how the book looks when you open it up:





Reiki is an energy healing method, and is not associated with any religion.

Here is the Reiki Daily Prayer I used in my book:

Just for today, I will let go of anger.

Just for today, I will let go of worry.

Today, I will count my many blessings.

Today, I will do my work honestly.

Today, I will be kind to every living creature.