Sunflower Card

Hi friends! We have sunflowers in the garden and they are gorgeous right now. One is really tall, while another one is a great shade of brown/maroon. This card was inspired by the sunflowers.

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I wanted to make a field of sunflowers in different height and sizes and used the new Simon Says Stamp Sunflower Meadow stamp set. It is from the Every Happiness collection. After stamping, I just added sentiments, jewels and stitching.

The stamps in the Sunflower Meadow set are meant to be stamped in layers and they are numbered (A1, A2, A3 and so on), to make it easy to see which stamps belong together. I used various Distress Inks for the stamping and misted with water after inking. The background is a very lightly colored blue watercolor paper.

I smeared Tumbled Glass on a non-stick craft sheet, misted with water and tapped the top of the paper into the ink. I wanted more blue in the sky. The flower to the right by mistake got too much water and became a little to messy for my liking as it didn't fit with the other flowers. I later cut it off.

Distress the edges and stitch with a sewing machine. The sentiments are also from Simon Says Stamp Sunflower Meadow. 

Don't worry if the stamping isn't perfect. Watercolor stamping is a bit unpredictable. My favorite flower is the one to the right here.

The smaller flowers and foliage in the set are very useful. 

I also added Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Dazzling Sprout Gems and wrapped the card with twine.

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

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Hummingbird card

Hi crafters! Today I have a colorful card to share using a background from a gel printing session and a great hummingbird die.

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This background has been on my desk since my last gel printing session. It is one of the dry embossed papers that I used to add a pattern to the printing plate. I liked the random colors and the mix of color, but hadn't found a project for it yet. Then I happened to look at this new Simon Says Stamp Flourish Hummingbird die and thought it would work good with the background.

I die cut the Simon Says Stamp Flourish Hummingbird from various inky or watercolored papers.

Since I wanted the bird to shimmer, I misted the shapes with Distress Spritz.

I die cut the sentiment from the same leftover paper as the head of the humming bird, using Simon Says Stamp Paper Cut Word Mix 1. The word was then misted with Distress Spritz Picked Raspberry. The matte was die cut from Silver Vellum. 

I wanted to add some flowers and used these from Simon Says Stamp Country Basket Bouquet. They were die cut from gel printed papers and misted with Distress Spritz.

Assemble the bird and glue to the background. The Simon Says Stamp Flourish Hummingbird is from the Every Happiness release.

The dry embossed panel was embossed in Simon Says Stamp Bubble Rings folder. Distress the edges of the dry embossed panel. I stitched around it with my sewing machine.

Shape the flowers with Tim Holtz Shaping Tool Kit and glue together. Add a Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Dazzling Bubblegum Gems to the center.

Here you can see how shimmery the word and the vellum is. The second part of the title was stamped with Simon Says Stamp A Little Artsy using Salvaged Patina Archival Ink.

Thank you so much for stopping 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.

Blackcurrant Jam art journal

Hi friends! I hope you had a fun weekend! School has started. It is starting to get chillier and darker in the evenings.

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At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have an Lots of Layers theme this week. I love adding layers to my projects, layers in all forms. Don't miss the stunning project by our August guest designer Cassie Lynch!

If I can get hold of blackcurrants, I always try to make blackcurrant jam and enjoy it with my breakfast cereal. It is a bit of summer that lasts into autumn and maybe even winter. This year I picked lots of blackcurrants and have more jam than most years. The page was done in my Small Creative Journal.

The background is from my recent gel printing session. Here I used papers embossed in Simon Says Stamp Stitching Sampler and Star Lattice. I liked the warm feeling of both the patterns, the colors and the distressing and thought it fit well with the theme.

Stamp the berries from Paper Artsy Fodder Berry Edition. I masked out the name of the plant when inking since these aren't really blackcurrants. They had to do as blackcurrants for this project.

Color with pencils. I used Prismacolors. 

Add white highlights with a gel pen.

Sponge Salvaged Patina through Simon Says Stamp Bubbles stencil.

Next add som marks with Walnut Stain and Tim Holtz Speckles.

For a little shimmer, mist Distress Spritz Antique Linen through Tim Holtz Sparkle Fade.

I thought the berries were too blue and added more of a currant shade to them. 

Stamp Tim Holtz School Desk alphabet here and there.

Stamp Tim Holtz Flower Jar on Simon Says Stamp Acetate with Stazon ink.

Color on the back with alcohol ink. Later, I added more currant.

The colors of the berries and the way they hang from the branches aren't quite correct, but that doesn't matter. I didn't want to make them as dark as they are in real life since I wanted to use several colors and shades.

This sentiment comes from Simon Says Stamp Be Your Beautiful Self.

I dotted the jars with a Q-tip and blending solution to get the dotted look.

The title was die cut from Simon Says Stamp black cardstock using Tim Holtz Vault World Travel.

I like that the jar comes in two sizes. Here you can also see the shimmer from the Distress Spritz layer.

Summer was stamped with Simon Says Stamp Chill Vibes. 

Pencils work well on background gel printed with acrylic paint.

Join us this week in our Lots of Layers 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.

Cosmos Flowers in Colored Pencil

Hello crafters! Today I have a project to share with colored pencils on patterned paper.

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.

One of my favorite techniques is to stamp on patterned paper and color the images with pencils. Here I stamped in Dina Wakley's Ledger Journal on a paper with both script and lines. Both of these shine through the penciling. 

Start by stamping Paper Artsy Cosmos Edition by Alison Bomber. I used Simon Says Stamp Masking Paper to mask one of the flowers. Use a pen to extend the stems.

I colored the flowers with pencils, using Prismacolors. For the lighter flowers I used a white pencil for blending.

Stamp sentiments with Simon Says Stamp Be Your Beautiful Self and A Little Artsy, using black ink and Simon Says Stamp Pawsitively Saturated Carnation and Sweets ink.

White emboss Simon Says Stamp Pepita Background here and there. I also white embossed dots from A Little Artsy in some of the flower centers.

Ink the page with Distress Ink. 

Stamp Simon Says Stamp Swiss Dots with Distress Oxide Mustard Seed.

I also added some words and numbers from Tim Holtz Correspondence.

And some stars too.

I used pink inks for some of the sentiments so that there would be more pink on the page than just the flowers.

I made most of the flowers darker towards the center.

I missed blending some lines, but only saw it when I edited the photos. It doesn't really show otherwise.

I let stray embossing powder be since it adds texture.

I masked one of the flowers to make it look like the pink flower is behind the yellow one.

These sentiments are both from Tim Holtz Floristry and were stamped on very light pink watercolored paper. Both the embossing and the colored pencil will resist the ink.

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.