Springtime Altered Tin Tutorial

Hello and welcome to my blog on this beautiful day! I hope you had a fun weekend and got some crafty time in. We had everything from outdoor soccer in a combination of sleet and wind, to beautifully spring weather later in the day. Nothing makes you quite as wet and cold as sleet, but it was still a fun day.

At the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Miniature/Tiny Things challenge. How fun! I love small details, as you probably already know. Don't miss the lovely project by our March guest designer March guest designer Lisa Rabellino.

I had such fun making my project, an altered tin, with lots of tiny details, and telling the story about a tiny boy out on adventures in nature on a beautiful spring day. He has met a friendly bunny, butterflies, ants and ladybugs. I was also inspired by the movie Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants, about a ladybug and an ant who becomes friends. We watched it on Friday, and it is really great. Leo loved it. Have you seen it? There is a second movie out now.

I altered an Altoids tin, but you could also make a little shadowbox from a box, or create a springtime scene on a card.

I started out with the ladybugs and ants, stamping them with Tim Holtz Entomology set on watercolor paper and die cutting with the coordinating Sizzix dies. The coordinating dies are very helpful on those thin legs.

Watercolor the ladybugs and ants with Candied Apple and Peeled Paint Distress Ink, by smearing the ink on a craft sheet, misting with water and picking it up with a paint brush. Add details with Distress Markers.

Cut the wings off from one ladybug and coat them with Glossy Accents, also coat the head of the ladybug and the head and body of the ants.

When the Glossy Accents is dry, adhere the wings with foam dots, for dimension.

The flowers and foilage was die cut from watercolor paper using: Funky Floral 1, Funky Floral 2, and Mini Tattered Florals. I watercolored the green paper before die cutting. The bunny and butterflies were die cut with the Springtime Side-order set. I ended up not using the branches and pine cones.

The bunny was watercolored with Distress Inks. I later added an eye with a pen.

The photos were taken in a field of Wood Anemones, so I kept the flowers mainly white, with just a few of Blue Anemones mixed in. Shape them with the Sizzix Paper Sculpting Tool set.

The two inside panels were in my scrap paper box. They were leftover from a gel printing session, and I really like the colors and textures. They had been embossed with Tim's Courtyard folder before using them for gel printing.

I dyed cheese cloth with Distress Ink, to build up the greenery in the background and then layered with foliage, leaves and flowers. In the original photo, Leo holds his hand on a tree stub, but here he is saying hello to the bunny instead. Both of these were mounted with foam dots.

I painted letterpress letters first with white and then with shades of green, and glued them on top of the tin.

The butterflies are meant to be Brimstone butterflies, usually the first butterflies that we see in spring. Shape the wings a little and layer them.

Here is the ant saying hello. You can see the cool effect of the Glossy Accents.

I also tucked some ants in here and there.

On the other side of the tin, I stamped a sentiment from Tim's Warehouse District set, and added more foliage, flowers and bugs.

Here are the two friends from the movie.

On the front of the tin, I added a larger photo taken on the same day, in the field of Anemones. I am looking forward to them making their appearance again soon.

Here you can see the great effect of the Glossy Accents on the ladybugs. It is one of my oldest favorite products, both as a glue and as a coating.

Around the edge of the tin, and on the inside edge, I added some design tape.

Here you can better see the dimension of the different elements. This was such fun to make and the recipient loves his altered tin, with the accompanying story, and already made up new scenarios. For more altered tin inspiration, check out: Vintage Christmas Tin and Winter Scene Tin.

I hope you will join us this week in our Miniature/Tiny Things 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.

DIY Watercolor Birds Pen Holder

Hi friends! I am back from an chilly, but lovely walk. I always enjoy breathing fresh air. During March, the Eileen Hull Inspiration Team is sharing projects spring projects. I made a pen holder, featuring birds.

As you might already know, I like to make my own storage containers, and I have quite a few of them on my desk. I have a pretty deep desk, so there is plenty of space. When I used Eileen's new Treasure Box and Stacking Drawer dies to make a Chest of Drawers last month, I thought they would also work great as a pen and tool holder, with three handy compartments. I used very few supplies to make this project, just the dies, mat board, Darkroom Door stamps and watercolor paint. Did you know that mat board is a great surface for watercolor? It holds up very well to the water and is similar to hot-press (smooth) watercolor paper. Just as with hot-press paper, the paint dries fast.

Die cut the pieces seen here, from white mat board: two side pieces and one base from the Treasure Box, and three dividers from the Stacking Drawer. You need the Extended Cutting Pads, since this is an XL die, but it fits perfectly through the ordinary Big Shot or Vagabond.

I used the wonderful Garden Birds Darkroom Door set, designed by Godelieve Tijskens. I love these birds. Stamp them with waterproof ink.

I used a bird book as reference, since I wanted to paint specific birds, but you can of course also paint your own fantasy birds. Mix watercolor paint before starting. Paint loosely, not worrying about perfection or fiddling around too much with the paint. The watercolor paint is vibrant on mat board.

I painted an European Robin, a Eurasian Blue Tit, and a Great Tit, repeating the first two in the smaller versions. These are all some of my favorite birds.

Add quick background colors with golden green and brown, adding a shadow under the birds.

I used the grass stamp from Darkroom Door's Nature Walk set, inked it with Peeled Paint, misted with water and stamped.

For a little more texture, I splattered some dark grey watercolor paint on the background, focusing especially on the ground.

Add sentiments from Nature Walk, and birds from African Trees. I also stamped the names of the birds with alphabet stamps.

Apply a strong adhesive along the flaps.

Adhere the sides together.

Adhere the base to the storage holder.

Assemble the three compartments.

Place them in the storage holder.

Fill with pens and tools. I just added random pens and tools from my desk, for the sake of the photo. I will organise it better later, and I always keep my pencils with the tip up. For some reason, I placed them the wrong way around here.

The Eurasian Blue Tit is one of my absolute favorite birds, and I see them often outside my window and on my walks. 

If you want to, you can paint branches for them to stand on, but for this project, I was happy with them standing on the ground, or it might even be a thick branch.

The European Robin is another bird I see frequently, and it has such a gorgeous color combination. I painted it very loosely, leaving some of the white of the mat board showing, for highlights.

The two little birds are cute too, and it looks like the Blue Tit has something to say to the Robin.

And finally, the Great Tit, which has similar, but also different shades of color compared with the Blue Tit. The shape of this bird stamp fit well with the Great Tit, which is another common bird around here.

And let's finish with a lovely sentiment stamp. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by here today! I hope you will try to use watercolors on mat board, since it is a lot of fun.

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.

Additional supplies:

Daler and Rowney watercolor paint
Darkroom Door African Trees Set
Hero Arts Printer's Lowercase alphabet stamps

Multi-Color Embossing Tutorial

Hi friends! It is a beautiful new day and the sun is shining. This weekend, we enjoyed the Swedish final for the Eurovision Song Contest, gorgeous sunny and chilly weather, soccer, and iceskating. I also took a really long walk on Saturday, in areas where I don't walk so often. 

We have a Feminine/Girly theme at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog this week, a theme that can be interpreted in many different ways. Don't miss the lovely project by our March guest designer Lisa Rabellino.

I made a tag this week, with soft tones of yellow and pink, in anticipation of spring days when our bikes can come out. In real life, my bike is yellow and black (which is a good and visible color combo to have in traffic), but this bike is pink, with white and metallic details. I had such fun using multiple colors of embossing powders, which is a very easy technique that gives great result, and works perfectly even on tiny die cut details. 

Always take great care when melting embossing powders, so that you don't burn yourself. Never touch the powder until it has cooled down completely.

The tag was covered with flowers, using Tim Holtz's Floral stencil and embossing paste.

Paint with gesso. I also added a layer of white paint, to make the background completely white.

When the background was dry, I dry-brushed it with Scattered Straw Distress Paint, not worrying too much about getting some paint in between the flowers, since I was aiming for a distressed shabby chic look.

Stamp the flowers with the You Matter stamp and Vintage Photo archival ink.

Die cut the Classic Bicycle from mixed media paper.

Use Ranger Letter It embossing pens and work with one color at the time, applying the embossing ink where you want the particular color of embossing powder. I used silver for the spokes in the tires, and Gunmetal for the tires, also adding a second layer of gunmetal, so that the tires are slightly dimensional. For most parts of the bike itself, I used Tea Rose.

Next, I added white details to the handlebar, saddle and mud guards.

I used yellow for the two lamps. The basket was embossed with two layers of tan powder, and the pedal with Gunmetal.

The celebrate word was die cut twice from white paper and and one of them was embossed with two layers of Tea Rose powder.

I die cut two pieces of vellum and one of watercolor paper using the Eyelet Arch Borders, to create a little path for my bicycle.

Instead of tying a ribbon to top the tag, I used a Tabbed Sentiment stamped on a die cut a Simple Tab to use as a tag topper.

I also added some pearls to the background. The background texture is easy to achieve and gives a great textured look.

The bike looks very sweet with all the different embossing powders, and it is easy to do when you use embossing pens. If strays from one color get stuck in another, you can brush them off, or leave them as is, for extra texture. I left the white strays in the pink areas.

Die cut the smallest flowers from Tim's Funky Floral 2 set, and give them some shape with the Sizzix Paper Sculpting tool kit. Adhere the basket with foam tape and add flowers.

I also glued some flowers here and there on the background.

Gunmetal and silver are similar in shades, but here you can see that the gunmetal is darker. Since I used two layers, it is also slightly raised from the background.

I hope you will join us this week in our Feminine/Girly 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 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.