Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember® Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to the Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember® blog hop! The Monday Challenge blog team has a fabulous blog hop for you this week. The team got to play with a great exclusive Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember Art Journaling kit, designed by Shari Carroll. You can see Shari's video about the kit here. Shari is also joining us in the blog hop.
 

Simon Says Stamp was founded in 2002 with an interest in exclusively selling rubber stamps. It didn’t take long until we realized we couldn’t stop there. During the past 11 years we celebrate rubber stamping in its full glory by giving access to people around the world to a one stop shop. Rubber stamps still remain the heart of our business and we are celebrating by hosting a STAMPtember® event intended to inspire, educate, and celebrate the greatness of rubber stamping. Part of the enticement of rubber stamping is that stamps can be used in creating or complementing ANYTHING! From stamping dates on bank documents and postage parcels in the early 18th century, rubber stamping has dramatically expanded to include card making, scrapbooking, mixed media, life documenting, art journaling, and many forms of altering and expressing art.

Our challenge for this week is to use any Simon Says Stamp Exclusive product.

 

I loved all the items in the art journaling kit and made two pages and two ATCs, I will share some of the steps below. The kits are great and you'll be able to make many pages and other projects with the supplies. I tried to use the products in the kit in a bunch of different ways, to give you some inspiration. I have also added some stamps and other products that are not in the kit.

 

I really like the size of Dyan Reaveley's Small Creative Journal (5 x 8), which is included in the kit. I made two double-pages, and the techniques I am sharing can be used on many different projects. There is a vintage dictionary page in the kit, and I happened to have another of them at home, also from Simon Says Stamp. This page was about optics, and since I had just been at the optometrist the same day I made a page about seeing clearly.

 

The vintage dictionary page I used on the second page defined 'orange' and that fit well together with a mainly orange page. I used a wonderful quote about art, which I also used on this tag for Tammy Tutterow. I wanted to use it for something for myself too and it fit well together with the IndigoBlu sentiment stamp that was included in my kit (the kits have different IndigoBlu stamps).

 

I started covering two pages with gesso, using the scraper tool in the kit. I added some lines with the tool in a cross hatch pattern. Leave to dry.  

I watered down some of the Claudine Hellmuth Classic Teal paint from the kit and painted it over the page.

I love the stencil Shari designed for the kit and used it in several ways on my pages. Here I applied texture paste through it with a palette knife. Leave to dry.

This great IndigoBlu stamp was included in my kit and I stamped it once in its entirety using Stazon ink. It also makes great flourishes if stamped partially, which I did in the lower corner.

I wanted to use a few lines from the song 'I can see clearly now' and since one of them included the word 'rain', I decided to add some raindrops, using Ronda Palazzari's Mini Raindrops stencil and black paint. The paint is included in the kit, but not the stencil. I used a definition of 'astigmatism' (which I have) from the book and a rub-on eye.

Here you can see the raindrops on the other page and the texture created by the scraper tool in the gesso.

I used the stamped area as a home for the title, made with the white stickers in the kit and Tim Holtz label stickers (not in the kit).

I wanted to use more of the text paper and stamped Prima stitched circles on the dictionary page (the stamps are not in the kit). I cut them out and splattered them with watered down Altered Orange paint for texture. The edges were inked with Gathered Twigs, which I also used around the edges of the journal page. The trunks were die cut from Core'dinations cardstock with Simon Says Stamp Exclusive Tall Forest Tree and Small Forest Tree dies. 'Vision' was die cut with Tim Holtz Stacked Artful Words die.

The second page was first coated with gesso, same as the first page, but I also pressed the stencil down into the gesso to create a subtle pattern (immediately clean the stencil). Leave to dry. The dictionary paper was torn and glued to the page with Multi-Medium matte, which is also in the kit.

When dry, gesso was applied on top of the dictionary paper, not covering the text completely.

Watered down Altered Orange was painted on top and before it dried, I wiped the page with a paper towel, which removed some of the paint from the gesso areas. You can see that the paint is darker on the parts of the paper not covered with gesso, especially around the edges.

I wanted some teal on this page too, and made a very watery mix. It was applied with a Faber-Castell dropper along the upper edge of the journal, placing a scrap paper underneath to protect the other pages.

More teal paint was applied through the stencil. Dab the paint brush off on a paper towel first. I used a stencil brush, but you can use a sponge or an ordinary paint brush too.

I stamped the IndigoBlu sentiment stamp from my kit on the page, as well as flourishes with the second IndigoBlu stamp, using Stazon Jet Black Ink.

The page was stamped with a dot stamp and Venetian Orange Archival Ink as well as with my favourite alphabet background stamp. The 'love' and hearts die cuts come from two Simon Says Stamp sets.

I even used the glassine bags included in the kit and die cut four butterflies from it, layered them together, stapled them and glued to the page.

For a focal image on this page, I used a Tim Holtz stamp. I made sure not to get a teal dot right where the face was stamped. The wings were coloured with Gelatos. The letter stickers in the kit were inked with Evergreen Bough.

The strips were inked with Evergreen Bough, isn't it a great quote? I also used Tim Holtz tissue tape. 

 

There are two manila ATC cards in the kits too, and instead of using them in the journal, I decided to make two ATCs. Cover with gesso as before.  I made the one to the left smoother. Leave to dry.

 

Paint the more textured one with watered down teal paint.

When the paint is dry, apply embossing paste through the stencil with a palette knife. Leave to dry and ink the edges with Gathered Twigs.

 

Paint the smoother ATC with watered down Altered Orange, and wipe the paint partly off from the gesso.

Apply Altered Orange through the stencil, but only using the dot centres.

Stamp both ATC's with the flourish stamp. Stamp the orange one with a dot stamp and Venetian Orange Archival Ink.

The kit includes two hinge clips, two paper flowers and two Scrabble tiles. The tiles in my kit happened to be the first letters in my sisters' names, so I made these ATCs for them. I cut the large flower into two pieces. The flowers were painted with watered down paint and when dry, stamped with an alphabet stamp. I also die cut and stamped a ticket. The hinge clips were coloured with Stream and Espresso Alcohol ink. The labels are also included in the kit. This one was stamped with a stamp from the Simon Says Stamp On Edge set.

On this ATC, I folded up the half flower and again stamped with an alphabet background stamp. The flower stem was made with the scraper tool, first dipped into black paint. The label was inked with Tumbled Glass and Gathered Twigs and stamped with sentiments from the Be Sentiments set.

Join us this week - using any Simon Says Stamp Exclusive product - and you can be the one to win a $50 Simon Says Stamp gift voucher, drawn randomly.

The next stop on the blog hop is the fabulous May Flaum.

Have fun hopping along and thank you for stopping by my blog!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:
Kit: Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember Art Journaling Kit

Additional supplies:
Surfaces: Neenah Smooth Solar White cardstock; Ranger Manila cardstock
Dies: Simon Says Stamp: Mini Hearts Set, Small Forest Tree, Tall Forest Tree, Life, Family, Love; Sizzix: Stacked Artful Words, Ticket Strip, Butterflies
Stamps: Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz: Tiny Textures, Going Somewhere, Winged Things 1, Classics #5; Simon Says Stamp: On Edge, Be Sentiments; Prima: Circles
Ink: Distress Ink: Gathered Twigs, Evergreen Bough; Ranger Archival Ink: Venetian Orange, Jet Black; Tsukineko Stazon Jet Black
Alcohol Ink: Adirondack: Stream, Espresso
Paint: Faber-Castell: Mango Gelato
Medium: Wendy Vecchi Stampers Anonymous: White Embossing Paste
Stencils: The Crafters Workshop: Mini Raindrops
Embellishments: Tim Holtz Idea-ology: Elements Remnant Rubs, Label Letters