Feeling Groovy with the Groove Tool and StencilGirl Stencils

Welcome to Day 1 of our Blog Hop with Art-C and The Groove Tool. I want you to read this entire post while humming 'Feeling Groovy." Because that's what I did while working on this post. Could.Not.Get.It.Out.Of.My.Head.

I'm going to confess that I didn't expect to like this tool. I'm not a tool junkie in general, I am kind of old fashion and tend to do things the way I always have. When Art-C sent me one I didn't know what to make of it. First of all, I had just purchased a Clarisonic (for my face) and the Groove Tool looked suspiciously similar, ha! Note to self, keep it in the studio.

Here is a picture of the little guy, isn't he cute! There are four heads the come with the tool, moving from the left, we have a sponge, brush, coarse sander and fine sander. Being a stencil maniac, I knew I wanted to try the sponge tool for sure. And if you are a regular reader of my blog, you surely know how picky I am about my stencil sponges. Ahem.....

But I digress. 

As I was trying to figure out what to make, I opened my journal to find two pages totally stuck together, I hate it when that happens. Being up for an experiment, I snapped on the coarse sander and went to work: 

breaks my heart when this happens, argghhh......

I sanded the damage and then painted over it.

First I used the brush tool to cover up the damage with a similar color. Then I snapped on the sponge tool and stenciled a pattern.

Newly stenciled areas.

Wow. Honestly I was so impressed with this darn sponge, I went ahead and added pattern in a couple more areas. It requires hardly any paint! Seriously, I used just a few drops and it made such a nice clean result, check out this close-up. It is a real fooler - I could barely tell I was depositing any paint and when I lifted the tool it was such a crisp pattern I was super pleased. 

Closeup up of stencil parts. 

Next I wanted to distress something because I like doing that but my hands are arthritic and using sandpaper is not their favorite thing.  

Journal page thick with paint.

This journal page had some thick paint and I feared it was going to be a sticky mess, so I used the coarse sanding attachment and went over the white circle area. No pressure whatsoever. The tool does all the work. And amazing, I got this cool distressed look. 

Distressed with sanding attachment.

To sum up:

• Groove Tool sponge rocks with stencils - use very little paint, you get a terrific result
• Groove Tool sandpaper will knock the sticky edges off your journal pages easy peasy
• Groove Tool sandpaper will distress a painted surface with ease
• I think that Groove Tool is going to seriously help my arthritic hands.

The Groove is available now at EVERY Hobby Lobby store.  Most Michaels and Joann Fabric and Craft stores have it now, as well. At Hobby Lobby and Michaels, it is in the stamping isle.  At Joann, it is in the paint and stencil aisle, near the unfinished wood.  Of course, it may be ordered directly from Art-C by calling Customer Service at 800-448-6656.

Thank you Art-C. I love this Groove Tool!