Butterflies and Gears Tag Tutorial

Hello stampers! We have had quite a many grey days now, but the sun showed itself for a short while yesterday. Today I have a tag to share with you.

This tag has a fun mix of industrial gears and pretty butterflies, with bits of glitter paper thrown in too. I used Darkroom Doors new Cogs Texture stamp, together with Tim Holtz butterflies and Abandoned paper stash. The gears are both embossed and stamped with colored ink, which is an example of using the same stamp in two ways on a project.

Start by die cutting a tag from Abandoned paper.

Emboss the Cogs Texture stamp with Copper ink on the background.

Ink the edges with brown ink. The embossing will resist the ink.

Stamp the Cogs Texture stamp on cream paper with turquoise ink. Die cut with the Clipping Heart die.

Ink the edges of the hearts.

Die cut the Joyful Frame from Simon Says Stamp Glitter Cardstock. This cardstock is so cool and doesn't give off any glitter at all. Here you can also see the effect of the copper embossing better.

I used the frame part of the joyful die cut to embellish the tag here and there, for some extra bling. The hearts were either glued to the background, or folded in the center and stapled to the background, so that it looks like they are flying.

I also die cut the word from copper glitter, and added Clippings Sticker sentiments.

The butterflies come from Tim's Curiosities sticker book and were adhered to cardstock and cut out. Fold up the wings and staple in the middle, to give them dimension and make it look like they are flying.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog 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.

Christmas Envelope and Card

Hello friends! Today I have a tutorial to share for a mini envelope and a card. It's a Christmas project, but you can of course use other stamps and turn it into a different theme.

This month the Eileen Hull Inspiration Team has been sharing holiday projects, and I used Eileen's Gift Card Folder & Label #2 die to create this. The stamps are from the newest release by Darkroom Door and are perfect for Christmas cards and envelopes. The envelope is 3 x 3 inches, which is such a cute size. It can also become more dimensional, but I decided to keep it flat. 

Here's the back of the envelope. I decided to only use stamps, ink and pencils for this project, with just a couple of stickers.

I also made a little card to go into the envelope. This is meant to be a gift card holder, but I cut it smaller and turned it into a mini card instead.

Start by die cutting the envelope and gift card from mixed media paper. I cut the card smaller so that it fits into the envelope.

Fold and score along the score lines. There are score lines also for a more dimensional envelope, if you want to fold along those too. Stamp with stamps from the Darkroom Door Merry Mail set. I used black, green, red and brown Archival Inks.

Stamp the card too, on both sides.

Color the Santa and some of the other elements with colored pencils.

Stamp the Santa and the label on masking paper, cut out and mask the images.

Ink with Distress Inks. I used Antique Linen, Vintage Photo and Ground Espresso.

Splatter with a little bit of water, and then remove the masks.

I left space for the recipient's name, or a short message.

I colored the images quite quickly, and didn't blend the colors. I wanted the texture of the pencils to be visible on this project.

Apply tape along the edges to assemble the envelope. The two stickers in fact cover up ink from when I dropped the envelope on the open red ink pad.

Here you can see how the the gift card holder piece sticks up so that it is easy to take out the card. When it is a gift card holder, you would place it the other way around.

Restamp the tree without reinking to make it look like there are trees further away.

On the back of the card I left a space for a little message. If you want to cover up the staples add a flower, snowflake, sequin or something similar there.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog 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.

Winter Bird Tutorial

Hi everyone! I hope you had a fun weekend! We were busy with lots of fun stuff: a price-giving ceremony for a sports competition where we also got to meet a famous athlete, a soccer game (luckily without rain or snow!), some baking, bits of crafting and even a short visit to a second-hand store.

At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Recycle challenge this week. I hope you will join us! And don't miss the project by our November guest designer Nikki Acton with her blog Addicted to Art.

I always enjoy recycle challenges, since it is such fun to use unusual surfaces and lots of bits and pieces. For my winter bird tag, I used plastic packaging, an old pair of jeans, a paper doily, a clothes tag, tiny bits of felt and a mix of pieces from a scrap box. I found an icecream box with scrap pieces from years ago, from projects I made in South Africa. There were even some items from my earliest papercrafting days. I was happy to find the doilies which I remember buying in a shop probably thirteen years ago. The clothes tag was also in that same box, and even the stamped ticket. 

Start by die cutting a tag from plastic packaging and emboss it in the Sizzix Confetti Hearts 3-D embossing folder.

Color with alcohol inks.

The bird is die cut with Tim Holtz's new Patchwork Bird die. I die cut the base from watcolor paper and the rest of the pieces from tiny left-over pieces of felt, burlap and the leg from an old pair of jeans. I happened to find a bag with scrap fabric from when I was a teenager and the jeans leg came from a pair of jeans that I cut off to turn them into shorts. There were also a lot of pieces that I meant to use for scrunchies from the days when I used to make a ton of scrunchies. It is fun to see that they are in fashion again.

Glue the pieces to the bird.

Here are some of the scrap items I picked out to use. I didn't use all of them, but most.

The clothes tag was stamped with snowflakes and Salty Ocean ink.

I stitched the bird, to give it more of a patchwork look.

Here you can see the look of the embossed and inked tag.

There is also a piece of an old book paper, another example of great recycling for craft projects. Recently, I read about the huge amount of books that are given to second-hand shops, but which are never sold, and have to be thrown away. I am happy to use some of them in my art instead.

The ticket was stamped with Tim's Odds & Ends set, which is still a favorite set of mine, even though I stamped this particular ticket years ago.

Joy was die cut from Simon Says Stamp Glitter Paper with the Joyful Frame die. I also used a piece of dyed lace and some cheese cloth, and Tim's Bouquet Flowers.

Here you can see what the tag looks like on a white background. You can also skip coloring the plastic tag, and keep the background transparent.

I hope you will join us this week in our Recycle challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until next Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

Don't forget to follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, 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 visit my blog 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.

Mixed Media Winter Landscape

Hello friends! Last week winter started to make itself felt here, with snow flurries falling, frost that had to be removed from my car windows, and much prettier frost on grass, leaves and branches. Still no snow on the ground, but it might be here any day now. 

And of course, it is the perfect time for some winter crafting. Today I have an easy winter landscape mixed media tutorial to share with you. 

Creating snow with different techniques is one of my favorite things to do. You can create snow in so many different ways, and here I used texture paste, paint splatters and Tim Holtz's new mica flakes. I have loved mica since I was a child and often look for it when out walking. There is mica to be found along some of my walking trails. Tim's mica flakes are not real mica, but they look very similar to the real thing, and they are heavier than I thought they would be. I expected the jar to be very lightweight and was happily surprised to discover that it does have some weight.

For the canvas I used a brand new stencil by Darkroom Door, and also one of their background stamps.

I worked on a 5x7 canvas board. I wanted to use one of the Dina Wakley media boards, but I couldn't find them. Not everything has ended up in a logical place since the move, and I still find myself having to look for things. You can use one of Dina's boards instead. Smear gesso on the board with a palette knife. Press the lid of a Distress Paint bottle into the gesso to create circles. 

When dry, paint the sky with watered-down Distress Paint and mist with even more water to make them blend. Leave to dry, it takes a little while because of all the water, but it looks better if left to dry on its own.

Apply texture paste through the Reindeer set stencil with a palette knife. I just love how proud and joyful this deer looks. The set also comes with a mask.

When the paste is dry, put the stencil back and apply Distress Inks with a mini round blending tool. Start with Antique Linen and then add the other two colors.

Darken the brown shades with a little Ground Espresso.

I painted the tail and the belly of the deer white, and added some white to the antlers. Stamp the background with the Starry Night Background stamp and white paint. Always clean your stamp immediately after using it with acrylic paint.

Apply white texture paste with a palette knife in thick layers. Try to create the look of snowy hills. Leave to dry. This takes a while since the paste is so thick. I left it overnight.

Paint the paste with white paint. The white paint is whiter than the paste.

Add just a tiny bit of Pumice Stone to the snow, to create texture, and Ground Espresso around the edges of the canvas.

Splatter with white paint using Tim's splatter brush. Always cover up your work surface and protect your clothing when splattering paint.

Apply gloss multi-medium along the base of the canvas, here and there in the snow, and as dots over the sky. Sprinkle Mica Flakes on top. They will stick to the gel and create the look of glimmering snow.

To add a few more warmer elements, I colored a Gumdrop Heart with Teakwood alcohol ink.

Here you can see the effect of the splattering and mica flakes on the antlers.

The stamped white stars in the sky are subtle, and I really like how they add another layer to the background.

One of my favorite parts of a project is often to add words and here I had such fun picking out phrases from Tim's Christmas sticker book. This is meant as a general winter decor item, and not only for Christmas.

I tied a Word Band around the base with twine. Here you can also see the mica better.

 

White paint was rubbed into the word band.

The texture paste in combination with the sponged paint gives a very nice texture to the deer, looking almost like the fur of a real deer. We haven't seen our two deer visitors in the garden for a couple of weeks, but they are bound to return.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog 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.