Simon Says Stamp Rain or Shine Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to my blog! I am so happy to take part in the Simon Says Stamp Blog Hop to celebrate the new Rain or Shine release. If you are following along in the hop, you should have come here from Tina Smith.

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

The Rain or Shine release is full of wonderful new and versatile stamps, embossing folders, stencils, dies, ink and gems, perfect for spring-time crafting. You can find the entire Rain or Shine release here.

The exclusive Balloon Bouquet die will be automatically added to your cart that contains $23 or more of Rain or Shine release products! This gift with purchase will expire 3/31 at 11:59 pm EDT or while supplies last. 

I made thank you tag with lots of words and lots of little ducks. The sentiments from the new Simon Says Stamp Thank You Basics are the perfect length for a tag and I always did enjoy covering an entire background with words. The little ducks from Farm Life were watercolored with Distress Ink. 

I started out by planning where to place the sentiment stamps from the Thank You Basics set. This set is filled with very useful thank you sentiments. Snap a photo so that you will remember. 

White emboss the sentiments on the background, working one or two sentiments at a time. 

Smear Distress Ink on a non-stick craft sheet and mist with water. Press the tag into the ink. I liked this first background, but wanted more color and texture. Let dry and repeat.

After having repeated the process above three times, I did a layer with only a tiny bit of Uncharted Mariner. 

And finally, the background was finished with Mermaid Lagoon and Mustard Seed Distress Oxide Ink. Smear on the non-stick craft sheet, mist with water and just lightly touch the tag to the ink here and there.

The Simon Says Stamp Farm Life set is adorable! I stamped the ducks on watercolor paper.

Smear Distress Ink on a non-stick craft sheet, mist with water and pick up with a paint brush. I forgot to include the orange ink in the photo.

Cut the ducks out. There are coordinating Farm Life dies, but I don't have them yet, so I used scissors instead.

The May Arts Faux Wrinkled Ribbon was dyed with Distress Ink. 

I also stamped a few hearts from the Hoppy Birthday set, cut out an glued to the tag. Glue all the ducks. 

Place the ducks here and there so that it looks like they are walking towards each other, for a meeting somewhere in the middle of the tag.

The background works great on its own too, you don't really have to add anything on top. 

I also glued Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Dazzling Sunbeam Gems to the tag. Don't worry about covering some of the text up. 

The final sentiment perfectly fit across the tag.

Don't miss all the inspiration along the hop! There are of course prizes to be won too, and at each stop on the hop SSS is giving away a $25 coupon, randomly drawn from those who leave a comment. The winners will be posted post on the Simon Says Stamp store blog on 26 March.

Your next stop on the hop is my friend Karin Åkesdotter. Don't miss to the wonderful project she has created. If you get lost along the way, here are all the stops:

Simon Says Stamp Blog

Caly Person

Nichol Spohr

Suzy Plantamura

Jennifer McGuire

Debby Hughes

Emily Midgett

Lisa Addesa

Tina Smith

Anna-Karin Evaldsson (you are here)

Karin Åkesdotter

Sandi MacIver

Tracy Ware

Barb Engler

Michelle Short

Charlene Madrid

For more inspiration, remember to check out the Rain or Shine gallery at Simon Says Stamp, and if you make something with products from the range, it is fun if you post it in the galleries too. There are galleries for all releases, and for the card kits, full of inspiration.

This is the first Rain or Shine blog hop, don't miss blog hop number day number 2, which is tomorrow.

Thank you so much for stopping by here today! 

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.

Watercolor Hearts Tag

Hello stampers! Today I have a tag to share with lots of hearts and fun watercoloring.

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

I wanted a tag filled with hearts, using products from Simon Says Stamp To Love release. I designed most of these products and had particularly looked forward to using the stamps with the hearts in different sizes from the Retro Hearts set. I used watercolors to color both the background, the hearts and the title.

White emboss Simon Says Stamp Outline Hearts on a tag cut from watercolor paper.

Paint with watercolor paint and let the paints run into each other.

White emboss Simon Says Stamp Retro Hearts on watercolor paper. 

Paint the hearts with the same watercolor paints as used on the background.

Die cut the hearts with the coordinating dies. Die cut one more time from Simon Says Stamp Navy Cardstock.

White emboss the sentiment from Simon Says Stamp Love Letter and watercolor with the same paints. Let the colors blend into each other.

Die cut with the coordinating Love Letter dies. 

I tied the tag with a mix of organza ribbons and a piece of fiber.

I stamped and die cut the arrows from Love Letter. 

The hearts are a fun way to test different color combinations. The hearts were adhered with Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Perfect Foam Tape. 

I also glued Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Dazzling Opal Gems to the tag. When you combine watercolors and heat embossing you can get surprising effects as the paint can pool inside our around the the embossed design.

The smaller sentiments come from Simon Says Stamp Love Letter and Lined Heart.

Distress the edges of the tag.

Thank you for visiting!

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.

Artful Voyage Journal Page

Hello crafters! I hope you had a nice weekend. It's been windy and cold here, but also with a bit of sun.

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

This week we have a Transport It theme at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog. I hope you will join us! Don't miss the project by our March guest designer Rox aka Red Dirt Crafter.

I made an art journal page with one of my favorite stamps, namely the boat from Tim Holtz Artful Voyage. It is a large stamp and the perspective makes it almost look as if the boat is going to come out of the page. I worked on a page in my square Dylusions 8x8 in Journal. 

Stamp the boat from Artful Voyage on the page with Jet Black Ink.

Stamp the boat again on Simon Says Stamp Masking Paper and cut out. I masked the horizon line with Simon Says Stamp Very Very Low Tack Tape. Ink with Distress Ink, making the sky darker towards the top.

Move the tape mask and ink the sea in the same way, making it darker towards the horizon.

Ink the sky with Uncharted Mariner through Simon Says Stamp Mix and Match Circles Stencil. 

Remove the mask and color the boat with pencils. I used Prismacolors.

Stamp the boat with sentiment stamps compasses and swirls for the sea. I also stamped the texture stamp at the top with black ink. Paint the waves with Winsor & Newton Permanent White Gouache and splatter some of the paint around the boat and at the top of they sky.

I added some red sequins and a few sequin stars.

The title comes from the Artful Voyage set and the smaller sentiment from Tim's Tiny Text.

The gouache adds a nice touch to the foam around the boat.

The swirl stamp comes from Tim Holtz Urban Chic and was stamped with Cobalt Archival Ink. The top sentiment is from Tiny Text and the bottom one is from Simple Sayings.

I accidentally stamped the compass with west facing downwards and restamped it on inky paper instead.

Stamp tickets from Tim's Odds & Ends on inky paper and cut out.

Join us this week in our Transport It challenge! You have a chance to win a $25 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

Do you use Instagram? If so please add #sssmchallenge so we can see your entries there too.

Thank you so much for visiting today! 

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.