SSS Sending Sunshine Blog Hop

Hello and very welcome to my blog! I am so happy to take part in the Simon Says Stamp blog hop to celebrate the Sending Sunshine release. If you are following along the hop, you came here from Heather Hoffman and I am sure she shared some wonderful card ideas with you.

The Sending Sunshine release is full of gorgeous stamps, dies, stencils and sequins. You can see the whole release here. It is a very versatile release and many of the products have a great summer feeling.

I made two projects for the blog hop, a card and an art journal layout, and both are tutorials. You can use the techniques for other types of projects too of course.

Let's start with the card, which is a spring time thank you card, but if you change the sentiments it could work for many themes. For the background, I used the Leafy Frame stencil, and the sentiments and wreath come from Wreath Greetings. I also used the Bohemian Lace stamp. The background and the circle were printed with my Ranger gel printing plate, and below you will see how easy it is to do.

I used these stamps from the Sending Sunshine release: Bohemian Lace and Wreath Greetings. And the Leafy Frame stencil.

I used these three die sets for my projects: Leafy Circle, Wreath Greetings, and the Flower Cluster.

Start by adding a little bit of Dina Wakley's Lime, Evergreen and Ocean paint to the largest gel printing plate in the 3 Assorted Gel Printing Plates pack. I added the Ocean paint only to the edges. Roll out the paint with a brayer.

Press the Leafy Frame into the paint.

You can get lots of different prints from one application of paint. I used Neenah Solar White paper for the printing. First, I pressed a paper down on the plate without removing the stencil first - the paper to the far left. Secondly, I removed the stencil and pressed another paper on the plate - the print in the middle. Thirdly, I pressed a third paper to the plate - the print to the right. I actually liked the third print the best, but I wanted my card to have more color, so I used the middle one instead.

For the circle I added a little white in the middle and Ocean around it. I love the look of this yummy circle.

Then I pressed the Bohemian Lace stamp onto the circle and removed it before pressing the gel circle twice on white paper. I forgot to photograph this step, but here you see the first print (to the right), which I didn't use. I also stamped the stamp on paper before cleaning it. You need to clean acrylic paint off from stamps immediately.

Stamp the wreath on white paper and die cut with the coordinating die. It is easiest to use the Sizzix Magnetic Platform for this.

Color with colored pencils. I used two shades of green on the leaves.

I stamped the main sentiment in the middle of my printed circle. Here you can also see the Bohemian Lace pattern on the circle. I also stamped more words on the background, as well as some leafy branches, all from Wreath Greetings. 

The edges were distressed and I layered the print on a piece of cream cardstock. Don't worry if the stamping isn't perfect. I distressed my edges before I decided to stamp, so there are patches missing here and there.

Adhere the wreath with foam dots and tuck three dyed Tim Holtz flowers into the frame.

This is my favorite part of the print, the fine crackle pattern, which I hadn't planned for.

I tied a piece of twine around the card and it was done.

And now to the art journal page.

The Bohemian Lace stamp is so pretty and I wanted it to take center stage on a project. It would also look wonderful as the base of a circle-shaped card. After having inked the circle, I had a look in my Dina Wakley Media Journal to see which surface it would fit the best upon - there are cotton-rag watercolor, kraft, canvas and burlap pages in the journal. I decided on this burlap page, since I liked the look with all the texture in the background, and also the gesso that had leaked through from a previous project. There was even some stitching there already, which I did on the other side of this page.

The Bohemian Lace was white embossed it on watercolor paper. It is a large stamp, and as you can see, I used a Sizzix Cutting Pad as my stamping block.

Smear Vintage Photo Distress Ink in a small circle on a non-stick craft sheet and add Fossilized amber around it. Mist with water and press the stamped paper into the ink. I wanted some darker details, so before the ink was dry, I smeared Ground Espresso on the craft sheet and picked it up with a paint brush. I added it to the center and to some of the leaves. I used a plate to trace a circle around the design.

Die cut the Leafy Circle from watercolor paper.

Glue the leaves in a repeating pattern around the circle.

Die cut the pretty Flower Cluster six or seven times and place under the edges of the circle, so that they form a frame.

I also used the Perfection die from the Love release, and inked the pieces with the same Distress Inks as on the background.

The patterns in the Bohemian Lace stamp are very pretty and look great in white. The edges of the circle were distressed.

Try to let some of the leaves from the Flower Cluster overlap slightly with the circle.

I hope you enjoyed this post and that it gave you some inspiration. Of course there are prizes to be won too! On every stop of the hop a $25 Simon Says Stamp gift voucher will be given away. All you need to do is to leave a comment. The winners will be posted on the SSS Store blog on Wednesday. There is also a second blog hop tomorrow, with more inspiration.

As a special treat, there will be a surprise gift included with the order for anyone who orders something from the Sending Sunshine release. All you need to do is to use the code 'SUNSHINE'. The code will expire Sunday, 5/20 at 11:59 pm ET, so don't wait too long.

Your next stop on the hop is the very creative Gayatri Murali and I am sure she has something fabulous to share with you. If you get lost somewhere along the hop, this is the hop order:

Simon Says Stamp Blog

Jennifer McGuire

Cathy Zielske

Amanda Korotkova

Nina-Marie Trapani

Nichol Spohr

Jessica Frost-Ballas

Lisa Addesa

Suzy Plantamura

Anna Kossakovskaya

May Sukyong Park

Heather Hoffman

Anna-Karin Evaldsson (you are here)

Gayatri Murali

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by here today!

I hope you will have a lovely weekend!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.