Mandala Card Tutorial

Hello crafters! Today I have a card to share with you made with a mix of inky, watercolor and printed paper.

During January the Eileen Hull Inspiration Team is sharing cards made with Eileen's Sizzix dies and I wanted to use the new Mandala die and the Folio Page Pocket and Flowers set. With intricate dies, you get a detailed card very quickly and don't need to add many more things to the card.

I have a pile of left-over inky and watercolor papers on my desk and for this card my eye fell on a piece of paper that I had watercolored and used cling plastic on to create textures. You can see the process of creating these papers in my Cling Wrap Watercolor tutorial. I die cut the Mandala from the upper part of the paper, which had a light turquoise color. 

Die cut flowers and leaves from the Eileen Hull Folio Page Pocket and Flowers set. I die cut them from Tim Holtz Journal cards and a left-over inky paper. Two of the shapes were inked brown.

Ink a piece of heavystock paper with Distress Ink and mist with water. Let drops fall on the paper too. 

When dry, stamp with the Simon Says Stamp Old Letter Background stamp and Vintage Photo ink.

The Mandala die is so intricate. Look at all those details. If you struggle to die cut intricate dies, place a piece of wax paper between the die and the paper. Using the Sizzix Chrome Precision Base Plate also helps.

The Mandala has an almost icy looking texture because of the paper it was die cut from.

Fold up the petals of the two larger flowers and place as shown, so the lower level of petals adds dimension. Place a pearl in the center of the flower.

The sentiment was stamped on another piece of Journal Card with the Simon Says Stamp Laugh In Flowers set and brown ink.

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

Dies: Sizzix Eileen Hull: Mandala, Folio Page Pocket and Flowers set

Bicycle ATC

Hello friends! I hope your weekend was good. We have a lot of snow here, but it is luckily not too icy and slippery.

This week we have a We're On A Roll theme at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog. Think vehicles, circles, cogs, rolls, and more. Don't miss the project by our January guest designer Anita Rao. 

I made an Artist Trading Card this week, which is always a fun size to work with. It was paired up with a cute bicycle and an easy textured background. I almost wish my bike looked like this!

Start with a 2.5 x 3.5 in paper. My paper had already been inked with a mix of Speckled Egg, Antique Linen and Pumice Stone. Smear the inks on a non-stick craft sheet, mist with water and press watercolor paper into the ink.

Ink up the Simon Says Stamp Circle Pattern Background with Vintage Photo and Faded Jeans, mist with water about four times and stamp on the background. It is easier to line up the circles if you place the stamp on a table and press the paper onto the stamp, than the other way around.

Dip a Night Scribble Stick in water and flick a paint brush against it to create splatters. This is a dark blue color. Scribble Sticks are perhaps my favorite way of adding splatters, quick, easy and fairly mess-free.

Die cut the Simon Says Stamp Classic Bicycle from heavystock paper. Use an Emboss It pen to add ink to the areas where you want a specific powder. Melt and then continue with the rest of the areas. Always be very careful when melting embossing powder and never touch the powder until it has cooled down completely.

I used the Simon Says Stamp Slimline Borders and Edges die to cut an old piece of book paper that was on my desk. It grounds the bike to the background. As you can see, the Sea Mixed media powder is here and there on the bike, which was done on purpose.

The number came from the same old book paper and I stamped the sentiment from Thoughtful Flowers on another piece, aiming for a somewhat messy look.

The little heart was die cut with the new Simon Says Stamp Mini Interactive Envelope die set and embossed with red powder. You can find another project using this die set in my Love You and Love You, Too Blog Hop post from yesterday. 

I hope you will join us this week in our On A Roll 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.

Don't forget to follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, where they post great stuff daily. 

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

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

Simon Says Stamp Love You, Too Blog Hop

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! I am so happy to take part in the Love You and Love You, Too blog hop to celebrate Simon Says Stamp's new releases. If you are following along on the hop, you came here from the very creative Bibi Cameron.

The Love You and Love You, Too releases are full of versatile stamps, dies, stencils, sequins and paper products. If you use the code HUGS4U2 you can get the Faraway Hugs 6x8 stamp set with a $100 purchase. This promotion will expire 1/18 at 11:59 pm EST.

I will be using some products from the Love You release. I made an art journal page, a card and a bunch of tiny envelopes, let's start.

I made an art journal page with the beautiful Cosmo Flowers stencil, using bright and happy colors. I made lots of these backgrounds in one go and you will see how below. It went into my Blue Edition Dina Wakley Journal, on one of the burlap pages.

I used the stencil as a stamp since I wanted a colored outline, rather than color around the outlines. I used Acrylic Gloss Media Spray, which won't run when you add watercolors or other media afterwords. Place on a piece of watercolor paper and mist pretty heavily. Take the stencil up, turn it around and place it on another piece of watercolor paper. I made lots of these and used the paper to the right multiple times, which is why you hardly see the flowers there at all. 

Here are some of the papers that I made. The one to the right at the bottom was misted just once, to give you an idea of how it would look with the white outlines instead. 

I colored the panels with Scribble Sticks and water. This would not have worked if I had used a dye ink mist instead, since the outlines would not have been permanent. With an acrylic mist, nothing will happen to the outlines when you add water to them. The paper to the left was colored only around the flowers, leaving the flowers white, while the paper to the right was colored around and inside the flowers.

Dip a Scribble Stick in water and then flick a paint brush against it to create splatters. It is an easy and fairly non-messy way of doing splatters.

Stamp the art journal panel with the SSS Old Letter Background stamp and Khaki ink.

I also stamped a few butterflies with the SSS Thoughtful Flowers set and colored them with the Scribble Sticks. 

The sequins come from the SSS Holographic Rainbows Sequins set.

The Cosmo Flower stencil is so pretty and you can use it in many different ways.

Don't worry about staying within the lines when coloring these flowers. We are aiming for a loose look. The sentiment comes from SSS Anna's Flowers.

I also added some Design Tape to the background.

The other panel was used for a card. As you can see in the background, we have had a lot of snow lately and I liked the look of the sunshine card against all that snow. 

Distress the edges and then stitch around them with a sewing machine. 

I used the same Holographic Sequins as on the art journal page.

The sentiment comes from another SSS Love You stamp set, namely You Have My Heart. I also found a left-over piece of circles on vellum on my desk (from this card) and used it here. I love finding little pieces on my desk and using them on new projects.

I also made four tiny envelopes and cards with the Mini Interactive Envelope die. I die cut them from inky scrap papers. We have a little gnome who moved into the wall in the living room before Christmas. He was only meant to live there during Christmas, but the boys love him so much that they want him to stay. He has a whole little set up with a door in the wall, a window, trees, animals, a post box where he leaves letters, some furniture and more. I'll share some photos here one day. I thought he could give these envelopes with little messages to the boys around Valentine's Day.

The envelopes and cards were stamped with various small sentiment stamps. 

This pair was die cut with one of the panels I made for this post. The heart was die cut from old book paper and I looked for a good word on the page before die cutting.

This envelope and card comes from my Wax Paper Resist video tutorial. 

Since these papers were inked on both sides, they worked extra good. You can also use double-sided patterned paper.

This pair is die cut from inked gloss cardstock.

And the final pair comes from a small inky piece left-over from my Distress Ink Blocks card.

I am so happy to have designed two of the stamp sets in the Love You, Too release. Both of the sets are inspired by my walks in nature. There is a 6x4 set called All Seasons Tree, with trees and leaf clusters and sentiments. The second set is called Forest Scenery and is a 5x8 set full of pine trees, deer and sentiments. The pine trees are just around the corner and the deer were inspired by deer who come to visit our garden.

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 Wednesday, the 20th of January.

Your next stop on the hop is Bobbi Lemanski and she will show you wonderful card inspiration.

Here are all the stops along the hop:

Simon Says Stamp Blog   

Laura Bassen

Debby Hughes

Amanda Korotkova

Yoonsun Hur

Heather Hoffman

Bibi Cameron

Anna-Karin Evaldsson (you are here)

Bobbi Lemanski

Vicky Papaioannou

Gayatri Murali

Keisha Charles

Kath Stewart

Kim Hamilton

Dilay Nacar

Lorraine Aquilina

Misty Elam

 

For more Love You and Love You, Too inspiration, remember to check out the Love You and Love You, Too galleries at SSS, and if you make something with products from the range, it is fun if you post it in the gallery too. There are galleries for all releases, and for the card kits, full of inspiration. Part one of the blog hop was yesterday, so don't miss all the inspiration there.

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