Thoughtful Flowers Watercolor Garden Tutorial

Hello friends! The postman came with a fun surprise yesterday. The new Simon Says Stamp Send Happiness release is here! With the current international shipping delays, I was happy to see it in the mailbox. 

Send Happiness is a fantastic and very versatile release. You can see the whole release here. It is extra special to me, since it contains the very first stamp set I have designed. So you can imagine that I was waiting for that parcel. I love stamps. It was so fun to start stamping with these images that I worked with so much. I decided to create a wildflower garden in my art journal. If you would rather make a card, just pick a section of the page and use fewer flowers. 

Another fun parcel that arrived this week contained Tim Holtz new Distress color Speckled Egg, and I decided to use the Distress Spray Stain for the background as a blue sky. I love this light shade of blue. I used Bundled Sage for the grass. The art journal page is a cotton-rag page in Dina Wakley's Media Journal.

Here you can see the Thoughtful Flowers stamp set. It is a 5x8 in set and contains a lot of flowers, butterflies, grass, a quote by HC Andersen and words that work for many different occasions and themes.

I started by stamping the four larger, or main flowers.



Next, I stamped three of them on SSS masking paper and cut them out partially. Place on top of the stamped images.

Stamp smaller flowers here and there and then remove the masks. It is a little tricky to stamp on the textured cotton-rag paper and I also had the company of a five-year old at my elbow, so I messed up a few of the stamped impressions a little, such as the buttercup. Don't worry if this happens, it won't be so visible in the end and you can add back some of the lines with a pen. The fainter impressions also makes it look like those flowers are further into the background.

Mix up watercolor paint and start coloring. You can also use Distress Inks by smearing them on a non-stick craft sheet and mist with water.

Continue coloring the flowers. Drop in darker shades before the first layer is dry.

Stamp the quote, butterflies and butterfly trails.

Paint the butterflies and add green paint to the grass area.



Stamp various grass stamps with Leaf Green ink and some with black ink. Stamp some of the small words here and there with black ink, restamping without reinking.

Add some highlights with a white gel pen and add back some lines with a black pen.

This is one of my favorite quotes and I remember using it on the first wall-hanger I made and gave away as a gift to a very good friend, probably about fifteen years ago.



I splattered a tiny bit of blue watercolor paint on the background, especially in the sky, for just a little texture.

Masking is a great technique for adding life and depth to a garden scene, since some of the flowers look like they are behind the others.

The snowdrops normally don't grow at the same time as buttercups, but in a stamped wildflower garden, anything can grow.

Grass stamps are very useful, both when it comes to adding texture to a grassy area, and to grounding the other flowers to the page. The grass makes it look like the flowers grow out of the grass, rather than on top of it.

Add some sentiment stamps to the grass area too. I also doodled a border around the page.

Finally, I added three rub-ons from Tim Holtz Specimen Remnant Rubs.

The white gel pen might pick up some of the watercolor pigment, making it blend nicely into the background in some areas.

Restamp small words without reinking for a fun effect.

The dots in the butterfly trails were painted purple, but I later added white gel pen dots to them, so that they stand out better.

The soft mists of Distress Spray Stains in the background, gives a tint to the page which unifies the different watercolor shades. I had such fun building this scene using quite many of the stamps from Thoughtful Flowers.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that it inspired you to stamp and watercolor some flowers. 

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.

Denim and acrylic background

Hello crafters! It's been a rainy weekend, but on Saturday I took a long walk after the rain. The forest is wonderful after a summer rain and the birds were having a concert. Since it was very warm last week, the blueberries are ready earlier than normally and I ate lots of blueberries. It was totally worth the mosquito bites I got every time I stopped to pick berries.

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Play With Paint theme. Since it is the first Monday of a new month, the team is showcasing products by a specific designer/company. This week it is Dina Wakley. You can find Dina's wonderful paints, stamps, stencils and art journals here. You don't have to use Dina's products to join, but it is always fun if you do.

We also have a new guest designer and for July our guest is Sheila Wy with her beautiful blog Sheila Wy's 216 Alchemy Lane. Don't miss stopping by her blog to see what she has created.

I love Dina's new Blue Edition Media journal and decided to work on one of the denim pages. The journal also has cotton-rag watercolor pages and cream burlap pages. For an example of a burlap page, check out my Watercolor Butterflies from last week. I also used Dina's paint, gloss spray, Scribble Sticks and Scribbly Birds. I took out one of my South African bird books this week and turned the birds into three favorites: the Southern Red Bishop, the Dark-capped Bulbul, and the Cape Glossy Starling.

If you don't want to make an art journal page, cut a piece of denim from an old discarded pair of jeans and make a card instead.

Start by coating the denim with two coats of gesso, letting it dry in between.



When dry, paint with Tangerine, Lemon and Turquoise.



When dry, place the SSS Large Dots stencil on the page and mist with white Gloss Acrylic Spray. I pressed the stencil on the opposite watercolor page to save the spray that remained on the stencil. It will become a base for a future project.



Apply black paint to one of the Textures stamps with a foam brush. Stamp on the page. Immediately clean the stamp.

Stamp two birds from Scribbly Birds and one from Scribbly Small Birdies on watercolor paper.

Color them with Scribble Sticks. I love Scribble Sticks and reach for them often. They are perfect for watercoloring and also for other techniques. You can color directly onto the paper and then turn them into watercolor with a paint brush and water. Or you can pick up the pigment with a paint brush right from the tip of the Scribble Stick. I used both methods here. I used sticks from Scribble Sticks 1 and Scribble Sticks 2.

I wasn't quite happy with my first red bishop, even though it looks more like the real bird, I wanted the black areas to be a little lighter. 

I scribbled more lines with a black pen and changed the look of the yellow bird, so that it would look more like a Bulbul. The starling was sprayed with a mix of water and Perfect Pearls (homemade glimmer mist) since it is a very shiny and sparkly bird in real life. I used a white gel pen for some highlights and finished with Glossy Accents on the eyes.

 

I don't know if you can see the shimmering look of the starling. It is a really gorgeous bird.



In real life, the bulbul has less yellow in its coloring, but I wanted it to have a warm and yellow look.



With a black pen, you can easily change the look of a stamped image.



I could see red bishops among the reeds in the dam outside the window of my study in South Africa. Like small bright red spots flying around. And so hard to capture on photo!

The background was stamped with words from Scribbly Birds and stars from Tim Holtz Rock Star set.

I used the stars as branches, so that the birds had something to stand on.

Can you see the Glossy Accents over the eye here?

The denim adds a great texture to the page and I like the way the bright colors look against the denim blue.

I hope you will join us this week in our Play With Paint challenge. You have a chance to win a $25 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.

Vintage Strawberry Tag Tutorial

Hi crafters! Today I have a tutorial on the Simon Says Stamp Store Blog. I made a vintage strawberry tag with some real fun techniques.

Here is a sneak peak of the project. The tag was inspired by summer, with strawberries, flowers and a sunshine sentiment. Stamping and coloring on patterned paper is fun, especially when you can see some of the pattern through the coloring. I used colored pencils and Tim Holtz journal cards.

You can find the full project and all the steps on the Simon Says Stamp Store Blog.

Thank you for stopping by! Have a great day and I will see you again tomorrow.

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.

Watercolor Butterflies Tutorial

Hello friends! I hope you are well and getting lots of time to craft. I have a stamped and watercolored butterfly tutorial to share today, using mainly watercolor paint, but also some pens and acrylic spray. I made an art journal page, but you can of course do the techniques on a card or in your scrapbook too.

I was looking at the pretty SSS Outline Butterflies background stamp and wanted to make it the star of a page. Butterflies always makes me happy and ever since I was a child I have loved to spot butterflies out in nature. I did no-line watercoloring here, although not completely, since I wanted some faint lines too, especially for the smaller butterflies. I worked on one of the cream burlap pages in Dina Wakley's Blue Edition Media journal. I like the light color of this burlap.

Start by stamping the Outline Butterflies on watercolor paper with Pumice Stone Distress Ink. If you want fainter lines, use Antique Linen instead, but I like the somewhat darker Pumice Stone for this, since it also gives a shadow effect.

Mix up watercolor paint and start coloring. I used a butterfly book as inspiration.

Continue watercoloring until you are happy with the look.

Leave the background white, or watercolor it with a light brown shade.

Add details with a black pen, a yellow Tombow marker and a white gel pen.

Splatter the panel with a little white Gloss Acrylic Spray. Take the sprayer out and tap the end of the sprayer (the part that is inside the bottle) to create splatters.

I added shadows to the larger butterflies, which is why they look more dimensional. The small butterflies were colored more loosely. Use the black pen to bring in a pen and ink look, and the white pen for highlights.

I distressed the edges and stitched around the panel before adhering it to the background. There's a piece of old book paper behind the panel.

A few Clippings Stickers served as sentiments.

I also used one of the lovely quotes on the Travels and Journeys set by Paper Artsy, designed by Alison Bomber.

The title was die cut with Tim Holtz Shadow Script 3 and painted with the same brown paint used for the butterflies. I die cut the matte from old book paper.

The white splatters picked up less of the watercolor paint than I expected, which I liked.

I love the blue and purple shades on this butterfly.

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