Typography Tag Tutorial

Hi crafters! I hope you had a good weekend. Everybody is healthy again here after a couple of weeks of colds. The snow is melting, but it might come back again. I am looking forward to the ice melting off from one of my favorite paths, which is almost impossible to walk when its icy. 

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog, we are having a Typography challenge. Lots of fun! It is all about the words and the letters. Don't miss the project by our February guest designer Lucyna Marynowska, with her blog u Luli. 

I made a tag inspired by the letter 'A', which is one of the favorite letters in our house since two of our names start with an 'A'. It has also got such an interesting shape. Three words are hiding in the background, surrounded by a whole lot of 'a's. The background was made with Tim Holtz Sizzix dies and colored with Distress Crayons. I took step photos.

Start by die cutting the three words.

Continue by filling the space with 'A's from different die sets. I used: Cutout Script, Alphanumeric Script, Alphanumeric Marquee, and Alphanumeric Cutout Lower. Here and there, I used a small flower as a filler.

Adhere to a second tag with matte medium.

Add a layer of clear gesso on top, to give the tag some tooth for the next step.

When dry, color with Distress Crayons, blending them with your finger. I used: Abandoned Coral, Worn Lipstick, Peacock Feathers and Antiqued Bronze.

Rub some of the color off with a slightly moist cloth, through a stencil.

Add a layer of Matte Medium on top, to set the Distress Crayon. Don't go back and forth with the paint brush, just go over every area once. Otherwise, you might lose some detail.

I stamped it with 'a's from the alphabet stamp from Tim Holtz's School Desk set.

If you want a brighter looking tag, you can skip this step. I had a marker next to me on the table and decided to just add some lines inside the letters and around the words. It gives a grungier look to the tag.

Apply embossing ink along the edges with an Emboss It Dabber and sprinkle with Hammered Mixed Media powder. Melt with a heat tool. Be very careful not to burn yourself when using a heat tool.

Die cut a butterfly from the Mini Detailed Butterflies set, and the two butterflies from Springtime Side-Order. Apply embossing ink to them and sprinkle first with Sea powder, on about half the butterflies. Melt and then continue with Hammered powder. Do not touch the melted powder until it is completely cool.

Here you can see the cool textured from the Hammered powder. I also added some rub-ons here and there.

Die cut the second butterfly from an old dictionary page and layer the two together. Add a sticker to the butterflies.

The butterflies look really cool with the embossing powders.

I also die cut an A with the Letterboard die and embossed with Hammered powder.

The big butterfly was only glued in the center, giving it dimension.

I hope you will join us this week in our Typography 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.

Winter Wonderland Mixed Media Tutorial

Hello friends! Today we had a fun day with sports and going to a birthday party. I am happy to have a tutorial on the Simon Says Stamp Store blog today. It's another of those project that started out as something completely different, then I was so inspired by a peaceful winter's walk and changed the theme.

Here's a sneak peek. I made a winter wonderland mixed media canvas, using stamps and various media. The cabin comes from Tim Holtz's Scribble Woodland stamp set and I used Ranger's Texture Paste Opaque Crackle to create that amazing crackle sky (I love skies with a crackle texture). This project is much easier to make than what it might look like, and you can find all the steps on the Simon Says Stamp Store blog.

See the full project and the tutorial on the Simon Says Stamp Store blog.

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

Happy stamping!

Anna-Karin

* 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.

Life, Art, Words

Hi friends! I hope you had a fun weekend! We had heavy snowfall twice so now there is really much snow here. I was glad we didn't need to go anywhere yesterday. It looks pretty amazing with all the thick snow, but Leo thought it was hard to walk since the snow reached up above his knees. 

 

Our theme at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is Add Some Red. It is a new month and as always, the team is showcasing a specific company/designer on the first Monday of a new month. This time, the turn has come to Inky Antics. You can see all their stunning stamps here. You don't have to use Inky Antics stamps to join in the challenge, but it is always fun if you do. 

Our guest designer during February is Lucyna Marynowska, with her blog u Luli. Don't miss checking our her project and her beautiful blog.

I made an art journal page in my Dina Wakley Media Journal, working on a cotton-rag watercolor page. I used two stamp sets by Inky Antics: Muse News and The Queen's Quips, both of them are designed by our talented teamie Andrea Ockey Parr. She has designed such fun and versatile stamps. I also like the different ways that you can add bodies and other details to her fabulous sketched women.

I started out by misting water on the background and sprinkling in Are You Cerise and Frankly Scarlet PaperArtsy Infusions powders. Add more water to blend them even more.

Stamp the woman from Muse News on watercolor paper and watercolor her with Distress Inks. Smear the inks on a non-stick craft sheet and mist with water.

I drew a dress shape on a piece of old dictionary paper and inked it with Distress Inks.

Color another piece of watercolor paper with Orange County Infusions and die cut using Tim Holtz's Mixed Media 3 set.

The sentiment from Muse News was stamped on another piece of orange colored paper and cut into strips. I stamped a frame around the page with border stamps from both Muse News and The Queen's Quips.

I wanted the words to have real punch and die cut them from SSS Schoolhouse Red cardstock using Tim's Word Play die. I also stamped the three circle stamps from The Queen's Quips with red ink on the background here and there.

I drew an outline with a marker around the letters and inside the shapes of the die cut pieces.

Here you can see the die cut stone wall texture better. I thought it fit with the main sentiment on the page.

I love this stamp, and the sentiment is awesome.

Isn't she great? I especially like the hair, and it looks just like how I wore my hair for some years when I was a child.

I always enjoy spotting details and words when using old book pages. This is a Swedish dictionary that I saved when my dad was going to through it away. There are descriptions of two kinds of birds and of various places starting with the word 'kung' (king).

I hope you will join us this week in our Add Some Red 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 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.

DIY Chest of Drawers Tutorial

Hello friends! I hope you are well! The snow is falling outside my window and I just got back from a walk. It's a winter wonderland outdoors and it was so peaceful and quiet, with almost no cars on the roads. I have an Eileen Hull Inspiration Team project to share with you today, made with two of her new dies by Sizzix.

I love to make my own storage containers, and have a lot of DIY storage containers in my studio, and the boys have some of them too. Today, I have a little chest of drawers to share with you, which is very easy to make with Eileen's: Stacking Drawer Box and Treasure Box dies. Both of these die sets are so versatile and I am planning to make lots of projects with them. They also coordinate perfectly with each other. The chest of drawers is about 5.3 in high and 3.2 wide and deep.

The drawers are a perfect place to store buttons, idea-ology embellishments, beads and other bits and pieces.

Start by die cutting three drawers from mat board. This is an XL die, so you need to use the Extended Cutting Pads, but it fits perfectly in an ordinary Big Shot or Vagabond machine. As you can see, the Scoreboards dies both cuts and scores the material.

For the base, I used the Treasure Box, but left out the lid part, since I wanted the drawers to be visible. You need to die cut two each of the pieces with the flaps, but only one square piece (I included two in the photo by mistake).

Coat everything with gesso. I normally leave the flaps uncoated, so that they will be easier to glue, but don't worry if you get some gesso on them.

When the gesso was dry, I painted the mat board with Ocean and Turquoise paints. Before the paint dries completely, rub some of it off through a stencil. I also rubbed quite a bit off here and there, for a shabby look.

You can stamp directly on the mat board, but today I was in the mood for tissue paper stamping, since it also gives a texture to the background. Stamp with Archival or another waterproof ink. I used beautiful Nature Walk stamps by Darkroom Door.

Add a layer of gloss medium to the surface, carefully place the tissue paper into the medium and add another layer of medium on top of the paper. Most of the tissue paper I have at home disappear almost completely on the background, but this particular paper was a little more opaque. It was a new paper that I hadn't used before or tested. Normally, I wouldn't have liked the look, but for this project, I liked how the bits of white texture added to the shabby look of the drawer unit. So it was a happy accident.

When dry, stamp with sentiment stamps, birds and a script background stamp.

Add more texture to the background by mixing a little Ocean paint into texture paste and applying it with a palette knife through a Mini Art Is text stencil and a bubble stencil. You can see that Tim's Bubble stencil is a favorite of mine.

Assemble the Treasure Box by using a strong adhesive along the flaps.

Add the back piece to the box. Once the parts were assembled, I dry brushed quite a lot of brown paint along the edges, and at the base. I wanted a grungy and dark look to contrast with the lovely turquoise. If you want a lighter look, dry brush with white paint instead.

Assemble the three pieces that fit around the drawers, and glue them to the box. I didn't place them all the way into the box, but left a small distance between the front of the box and the drawers.

Assemble the drawers in the same way, starting with the side flaps, and then place the base piece inside the drawers.

Place the drawers in the slots and your storage unit is done. This piece would also work great as a doll accessory.

I like the layers of paint, tissue paper, stamping and texture paste.

Here you can see the texture from the tissue paper, it is most visible on the darker parts of the project.

Some of the words from the stencils were chosen specifically, such as 'color and shape'.

Each drawer front is treated like a little canvas of its own.

I really like this grass stamp.

On this drawer, you can also see that extra texture from the tissue paper.

The other side of the box.

I am very fond of small sentiment stamps, such as these from the Nature Walk set.

At the top of the box, I stamped a sentiment from Darkroom Door's Majestic Mountains.

The chest of drawers unit was such fun to make. It also reminded me of my first homemade Chest of Drawers, also made with Eileen's dies. If you want more inspiration, you can find that post here. I still use that Chest of Drawers almost daily, and I can hardly believe that it was almost seven years ago that I made it.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Thank you so much for stopping by here today!

Have a lovely weekend!

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.

Other supplies:
Stamp: Darkroom Door French Script Texture Stamp