Memories 2014

Happy New Year!! I can't believe this is the last day of the year, time really flies. We had a pretty eventful year and I made a layout about it so that I wouldn't forget any important small or big events.

I've been doing these end of the year layouts for about ten years now and they are fun to look back on, a little summary of the whole year. To make this I used some new Sizzix dies by Jen Long and there are a lot of small die cuts embellishing the file folder cards used for the journaling. Each card contains two months. The background of the layout is a gelli printed paper that I had in my stash.

To read more about this and see the details, head over to the Sizzix blog.

Thank you for all the visits and comments during this year, I really appreciate it.  I hope 2015 will be a happy year for everyone, full of creativity and fun.

Happy New Year!

Anna-Karin

Owl Canvas Tutorial

Hello everyone! I hope you had a great Christmas! I can't believe the year is almost over, time really flies. Today I have a Sizzix mixed media canvas tutorial to share with you.

 

I made this canvas as a gift to Anton's teacher, whom we will miss very much. I am glad to know the canvas is hanging in her house now. If you look closely you'll see that many of the details on the canvas are related to teaching. Sizzix dies were used for the owl, leaves and to make my own stencil. The stamps are all by Hero Arts. Let's start.

 

I die cut the owl with the Owl #2 die, using mat board. Use this sandwich: cutting pad, die facing up, mat board, second cutting plate.

These are all the pieces for the owl. I die cut an extra little heart. 



Paint the wings with Broken China and the feet black. Smear Ranger's Texture Paste on the owl, in a relatively thick layer. Press the wings, feet and eyes into the paste, which will work as an adhesive. You can also paint the wings and feet later. Leave to dry.
 

Paint the owl's body with Iced Spruce, using a paint brush.



 

Paint the eyes with Antique Linen and Black Soot, the hearts with Broken China, and the beak with Spiced Marmalade.

 

Coat a canvas with gesso and leave to dry. When dry, adhere Tim Holtz Postale Tissue Wrap with multi medium. Don't worry if it wrinkles a bit. I used a 8 x 10 canvas.

White wash the tissue paper with Picket Fence Distress Paint. You might want to add two layers.

 

When the white paint is dry, paint the canvas with Iced Spruce and Broken China.

The easiest way to add stamped images to a slightly uneven surface such as a canvas, is to stamp them with a permanent ink on tissue paper. Tear the images out since a torn edge disappears better than an edge cut with scissors.

Plan the design by moving the images stamped on tissue paper around until you are happy. Apply gloss multi medium on the canvas where you want to add a stamped tissue image, place the image into the medium and carefully add another layer of medium on top of the image. That way, the tissue paper disappears almost completely.

 

Stamp the wings of the owl and the hearts with a number background stamp. Apply two words stamped on tissue paper to the body of the owl. Dry brush a little Black Soot paint on the owl. Coat the wings, eyes, hearts and beak with Glossy Accents and set aside to dry.

Die cut two Vines from watercolour paper.

 

Paint with Bundled Sage and Evergreen Bough. When dry, stamp with a Hero Arts background stamp using Archival Jet Black ink.

 

Die cut a woman from watercolour paper and paint with Black Soot. Or die cut her from black paper.

 

Die cut 'No 1' from Eclipse Tape, Tim Holtz Masking Sheet or something similar, to make your own stencil.

Mix a little bit of Spiced Marmalade paint into Texture Paste and apply through the homemade and a dot stencil with a palette knife. Leave to dry.

 

Add some black paint to the canvas, especially around the edges. Later I added some more, also to the orange areas.

The printed tissue paper shows through the layers of painting and stamping to give depth and texture to the canvas.

I used various date, word and number stamps.

The finished owl is real cute and looks very different from the plain pieces of mat board that we started out with. Adhere it with multi medium and place a book underneath and one on top of the canvas to make sure it is stuck well.

The branches almost blend into the background, especially if you give them a rough shadow with black paint.

This is the teacher and her little students. I love these bird stamps by Hero Arts.

The school house and the stencilled number.

The edges are all covered with words stamped on tissue paper and applied in the same way as before.

 

Thank you so much for looking at my last tutorial of this year! I'll be back on New Year's Eve with another post.

 

Happy crafting!

 

Anna-Karin

 

Supplies:

Surfaces: Sizzix Little Sizzles Cream Mat Board 6 x 13; Tim Holtz idea-ology: Postale Tissue Wrap; Canson Watercolour Paper; canvas 8 x 10; Judikins Eclipse Tape; tissue paper

Dies: Sizzix: Owl #2, Vine #2, Cargo Stencil Numbers, You & Me

Stamps: Hero Arts: Astronomy Background CG633, My Favorite AC030, Time AC029, Remember AC028, My Notebook AC027, Basic Lowercase Letters LL188, Round Calendar 331483

Ink: Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black

Paint: Distress Paint: Picket Fence, Evergreen Bough, Bundled Sage, Broken China, Black Soot, Iced Spruce, Spiced Marmalade

Medium: Ranger: Texture Paste, Gloss Multi Medium, Glossy Accents

Stencil: Simon Says Stamp: Medium Dots

 

Pinecone Winter Canvas

Hi all! First I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas!! I hope you will have a wonderful time. We are settling into our new place and although the snow hasn't arrived yet it is pretty cold today and the world is white with frost. It might snow a little later tonight, perhaps in time for Santa's arrival. Here Santa comes to the houses and hands out the gifts on Christmas Eve, and doesn't need to squeeze through the chimney.

 

My studio/study is partly set up, although I have pretty limited supplies, most of it is coming later. I was very happy to be crafting again after all the moving arrangements. Here's a little canvas I made yesterday using a new Sizzix die by Susan Tierney-Cockburn, called White Pine Pinecones. It makes lovely pinecones and I am also very fond of the two leaves in the die set. Instead of making my pinecones brown, I went for silver and beige, for a frosty winter feeling.

 

To make these, I first misted watercolour paper with Tim Holtz new Distress Spray Stains: Brushed Pewter, Antique Linen, and Evergreen Bough. Remember to mist both sides of the paper. This is a real quick way of colouring large piece of paper. Die cut the parts of the pinecones and shape them with the Susan's Garden tools. These dies work great together with the Magnetic Platform. Sandwich: Magnetic Platform, cutting pad, paper, die facing down, second cutting pad.

 

You can use Yes! Paste to build the pinecones around, but I used Ranger's Texture Paste instead. Make a little oval pile on a piece of scrap plastic, or on your craft sheet, and start building the pinecones from below. Aim to create a conical shape. Leave to dry. When dry, I added a little bit of Glossy Accents at the base and here and there to make sure the papers were stuck. The pinecones were inked with Gathered Twigs.

The leaves were die cut from the Evergreen Bough coloured paper and I cut some of them with a pair of scissors to make them even finer. 

 

I found a natural based canvas (4 x 4 in) in a drawer in my old desk, which I must have bought years ago. It was painted with gesso, and when dry, I added some Antique Linen and Walnut Stain Distress Paint. The sentiment is by Tim Holtz.

I glued the leaves with Glossy Accents and then smeared Texture Paste on the canvas and pressed the pinecones into the paste, which works as a glue. More paste was added to the leaves and the pinecones and then I covered it with Rock Candy Distress Glitter, for a snowy look. 

 

The canvas is chunky and I smeared some more paste here and there on the sides, also sprinkling with the glitter.

 

Thank you so much for looking!! And again, Merry Christmas!!

 

Anna-Karin

 

Supplies:

Surfaces: Canson Montval Watercolour Paper; canvas 4 x 4 in

Dies: Sizzix: White Pine Pinecones

Stamps: Stamper's Anonymous Tim Holtz: Mini Handwritten Holidays

Ink: Distress Ink: Gathered Twigs; Stazon Jet Black

Mist: Distress Spray Stain: Antique Linen, Evergreen Bough, Brushed Pewter

Paint: Distress Paint: Antique Linen, Walnut Stain

Medium: Ranger: Texture Paste, Dina Wakley Gesso

Glitter: Rock Candy Distress Glitter

Gelli Print Business Cards

Hi all! I hope you enjoyed your weekend! Today I am writing to you from Sweden (or actually not really, because I am scheduling this post ahead of time). We have an anything goes challenge at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this week.

 

I needed business cards to hand out to people and decided to make my own. I have a whole stack of gelli printed papers at home and this was the perfect project for some of those papers. The cards were cut from the papers, making them all different, which worked great for me since I am not so fond of repeating the same design over and over again.

 

I stamped the cards with various Tim Holtz stamps and sentiments, using Jet Black ink. Even a gelli printed paper which didn't come out right worked great for the cards (the one in the upper left corner).

 

Some more of the cards. I made a lot of cards and it didn't take much time at all. My details were printed and adhered to the back.

They look fun all thrown together in a pile too.

Join us in our anything goes challenge and it might be you who wins a $50 Simon Says Stamp gift voucher, drawn randomly.

 

Thank you for the visit!

Happy crafting!!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:
Stamps: Stamper's Anonymous Tim Holtz: Travel Ways, Rock Star, Odds & Ends, Simple Sayings, Warehouse District, Nature's Moment; Classics: Classics #1, Classics #16
Ink: Ranger Archival Ink: Jet Black
Paint: Ranger Dina Wakley Paints
Tools: Gelli Arts: Gel Printing Plate 8 x 10

The Move File

Hello everyone!! I hope you had a good weekend! This week's challenge at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog was a suggestion of mine, namely transportation. You could use transportation stamps or embellishments, Santa's sleigh, do a travelling project, or anything else you can think of.

With our upcoming move happening this week, I made a move folio to collect papers, ephemera and photos in. As a base, I used Tim Holtz large Collection Folio, giving me lots of space. The folio was covered with patterned paper from Destinations and French Industrial paper pads, using papers that worked well with my theme. You can even see our destination on the vintage map on the cover, and I used a stamp with our point of departure. The globe was die cut from a cardboard box, with the continents being die cut a second time from patterned papers.

I stamped the background with various transportation and text stamps, using Jet Black and Potting Soil Archival inks.

The title was made with Alpha Chips and Label Letters and I rubbed paint into the compass. I die cut arrows from a cork sheet.

I also used a bunch of Prima wooden embellishments, inking them with Distress inks and adding rub-on words to them.

I aimed for texture and lots of details, but without adding too much bulk since I want the folio to be useful.

All the inside flaps were covered with patterned paper, using Ranger's Matte Multi Medium to attach the paper.

The flaps for the pages were stamped with various stamps.

When dry, I sanded and inked all the edges to roughen up the folio, since moving is pretty rough business.

All the papers were stamped, to make them fit better with the project, and because it is real fun to sit down and stamp randomly on patterned papers.

The back of the folio looks like this, with more papers and stamping.

I hope you will join us in our challenge this week! As every week, one random participant wins a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp and can do some fun Christmas shopping.

 

Thank you so much for stopping by today!!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:
Surfaces: Tim Holtz idea-ology: Collection Folio, French Industrial Paper Stash, Destinations Paper Stash; We R Memory Keepers: Cork Stash
Dies: Sizzix: Vintage Globe, Mini Hearts, Artful Arrows
Stamps: Stamper's Anonymous Tim Holtz: Travel Ways, Artful Voyage, Warehouse District, Air Travel, Mini Muse, Life Adventure, Rock Star, Stuff to Say
Ink: Ranger Archival Ink: Jet Black, Potting Soil; Distress Ink: Gathered Twigs, Black Soot
Embellishments: Tim Holtz idea-ology: Words Remnant Rubs, Compass Coins, Label Letters, Alpha Chips,  Prima: Travel Wood Icons

Heart Ornaments Tutorial

Hello everyone! I am sharing a tutorial on the Sizzix blog, for Christmas Heart Ornaments. Sorry for posting it a day late here on the blog, but we didn't have electricity.

 

The ornaments were made with the Hearts #4 die, which is a Bigz die with three pretty large die. I used Christmas photos from different years to embellish them. It would be great to have a new one for every year.

 

To see the full tutorial, head over to the Sizzix blog.

 

Thank you for stopping by!!

 

Happy crafting!

 

Anna-Karin