Jane Gauss

What started as a hobby turned into an obsession and then became a profession that took Jane Gauss from schoolteacher to full-time mom to author, designer, and teacher.

Jane started stenciling in 1981 at an Adele Bishop seminar. She quickly became an Adele Bishop master teacher and began teaching stenciling in a makeshift classroom in the basement of her family's Ohio home. Soon her part-time business grew into a stenciling distributorship.

In 1983 Jane joined Plaid as an author and designer. A founding member of the Stencil Artisans League, she was instrumental in the development of the Stencil Décor ® wall stenciling program and was a co-designer of Stencil Gels, the laser-cut stencil designs, and Decorator Blocks ® and Stamp Décor ®. Jane has also authored more than 35 home decorating books, and continues to travel the world as a teacher introducing students to the world of stenciling, block printing, and stamping.

So, what advice would Jane give a designer hoping to follow in her footsteps? "Understand your products and know everything you can as how they can be simplified for the beginning crafter and home decorator. Work with products that guarantee success!"