SSS Falling For You Blog Hop

Hello everyone!! I am so excited to be a part of the Simon Says Stamp Falling For You Blog Hop, in celebration of the new fabulous Falling For You release. I love the name of the release and the stamps, stencils and dies are wonderful and very versatile. Don't miss all the inspiration and there is a prize to be won on each stop of the hop. You should have arrived here from the wonderful Wanda Guess.

I had so much fun that I made two art journal pages and one card. The first journal page is also a stepped tutorial.

The Falling series of dies and stencils (Falling Hearts, Falling Snow, and Falling Stars) are favourites of mine and I was so happy to see them in the form of 6 x 6 in rubber stamps. These stamps are so versatile, I'll be using them a lot since they work for many different techniques and projects. 

I like to now and then use photos in my art journal, and since we had a new addition to the family very recently, I've been all about baby photos lately. Big brother had has a bit of a hard time adjusting to having a sibling, and I wanted to include him on this page so that he would know just how much he matters. I did a fun batik resist technique on this page and the technique works just as well on any type of project.

These are the Falling For You products that I used: Falling Hearts, Falling Snow, Falling Rain, Circle Sayings, and Solid Falling For You Backgrounds.You can find the whole release here.

Start by clear embossing the three background stamps on Ranger's Specialty Stamping paper.

I used Simon Says Stamp inks, love these colours. Use the direct to paper technique to quickly cover the paper with ink, by dragging the ink pad over the paper. Immediately smooth out the ink with an ink blending tool. You need to be pretty quick to get a smooth and even look. 

Now we are going to remove the embossing powder with an iron (no steam). Place the paper between sheets of printer paper and iron. I normally have two sheets of printer paper over the paper, to protect my iron. The embossing powder transfers to the paper. You need to change the paper frequently; otherwise, you'll transfer the powder back to the inked background again.

When I ironed my first background, I was a little impatient and didn't bother changing the printer paper fast enough. The result was a halo or shadow effect around the dots. I sighed and almost started over again, but decided that I really liked the shadow effect, and did the same thing on the other two backgrounds. It is a little hard to control, but gives fun extra dimension to the background. I love these types of happy accidents.

Cut three strips large enough for your project. I worked in my Small Creative Journal. This would work great as a background for a card too.

Next, I decided to use Sizzix new Inksheets, which won the Hot New Product Award at CHA at the beginning of the year. With the Inksheets, you can turn any wafer-thin die into a stamp, so it works great together with Simon Says Stamp Exclusive dies. All you need is Inksheets, which you get in white, silver, gold and black, and an Inksheets Transfer Pad. There is also a starter kit available. Use this sandwich: Magnetic Platform, Inksheet Transfer Pad, paper, Inksheet with the matte side facing the paper, die facing down, normal Cutting Pad.

I used the Life, Family, Love set, which is a favourite of mine, and I love that I can now turn these dies into stamps, especially since the result is a great outline look. I wanted a subtle effect and used white, but if you use one of the other colours, the words will show more.

Since I wanted the boys to sit on a cloud I took out the Chevron Cloud dies, and got the idea of trying something else with the Inksheets. I wanted to see if the chevrons would transfer, even though they don't cut the paper when you use this die, but are meant for dry embossing and inking. Instead of using the Transfer Pad, I used a normal Cutting Pad, and added a shim with a single sheet of printer paper. Otherwise, the sandwich was the same as above. My experiment was successful, the cloud was die cut and the chevrons were transferred. Cool! I used a silver Inksheet. Normally, you don't have to cut the Inksheets, since they will only transfer where the die is, when you use the Transfer Pad. But for my sandwich it was better to cut the Inksheet first, to prevent that it transferred everywhere. On this photo, from left to right: the die cut silver chevron clouds, the dies, and the leftover Inksheet clouds.

I temporarily adhered my backgrounds to a piece of paper, and stamped with the sentiment stamps in the Circle Sayings set. Slate ink was used instead of black for a softer look.

The Woodland Frame, Sketch Heart, and Large Holiday Hearts were die cut from white paper, using the Magnetic Platform. Sandwich: Magnetic Platform, Cutting Pad, paper, die facing down, second Cutting Pad.

Here you can better see the subtle effect of the Inksheet word, and the cool shadows from the batik technique.

I was real happy with these chevron clouds. They aren't perfect and I might experiment with other sandwiches later. But I thought the clouds were pretty cool nevertheless.

The white Inksheet words stand out best on the blue background. 

I love this heart and the Woodland frame.

I also added some stamped sentiments with Jet Black ink to make them stand out better from the background. This one, from the Friendly Flowers set, was perfect for my page.

The last Inksheet word. I was happy with how this journal page turned out and I had such fun with the techniques.

Then I made a card:

For the card, I used the Solid Falling For You Backgrounds set. I stamped them with the same inks used on the journal page, but on Neenah cardstock. It can be hard to get good impressions with clear stamps that have large solid areas, if you struggle, try using the Sizzix Stamper's Secret Weapon, which provides a great surface for stamping, especially for clear stamps.

After stamping the panels, I cut them out and temporarily held them together with masking tape. The Happy die was transferred with a black Inksheet, and I stamped 'birthday' underneath to complete the sentiment.

The panels were stamped with circles using Slate ink and mounted on a folded cardstock base embossed in the Dot-Matrix folder.

I had some leftovers and made a quick journal page:

The background of this page was watercoloured at some other stage, which made the page extra quick to complete. After picking my sentiment, I used dies and some fun surfaces to build a little scene. I liked the idea of the umbrella protecting the house from the rain/problems.

I die cut the outline of the umbrella with wood paper from MME. I used a silver Inksheet for the drops on the inside part of the umbrella, and cut the shape out with scissors. The clouds were die cut from Tim Holtz new cool Deco Sheets, which is very shiny. The Falling Rain stamp was stamped in the background, with grey ink.

The roof of the house was die cut from paper leftover from the journal page above, as well as the cute little yellow birds. I made sure to get a heart on each bird - the Magnetic Platform makes this easy, since it prevents the dies from shifting. The body of the house and the trunk of the tree were die cut from the wood patterned paper.

I used the Falling Snow stamp to add texture to this part of the page, stamping it repeatedly with Victorian Velvet ink. This is one of my favourite ways to use background stamps. I love this sentiment and die cut another word from leftovers from the first journal page.

Don't forget that there are prizes to be won! If you leave a comment, you have a chance to win a price on each stop of the hop. The winners will be drawn on 28 April and Simon Says Stamp will contact them.

Next stop on the blog is the fabulous Kathy Racoosin. Don't miss all the inspiration!

If you get lost, head back to the Simon Says Stamp blog again.

Thank you so much for stopping by today!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

Simon Says Cling Rubber Stamp FALLING RAIN	Simon Says Cling Rubber Stamp FALLING SNOW	Simon Says Cling Rubber Stamp FALLING HEARTS	Simon Says Clear Stamps CIRCLE SAYINGS	Simon Says Clear Stamps SOLID FALLING FOR YOU BACKGROUNDS
Simon Says Clear Stamps FRIENDLY FLOWERS	Simon Says Clear Stamps FLORAL BOOKMARKING	Simon Says Stamp WOODLAND RECTANGULAR FRAME	Simon Says Stamp LIFE FAMILY LOVE	Simon Says Stamp CHEVRON CLOUDS
Simon Says Stamp LARGE HOLIDAY SHAPES	Simon Says Stamp SKETCH HEART	Simon Says Stamp HAPPY	Simon Says Stamp HOME BUILDING	Simon Says Stamp UMBRELLA SHAKER
Simon Says Stamp CLOUD BANK	Simon Says Stamp Dye Ink ISLAND BLUE	Simon Says Stamp Dye Ink GOLDENLOCKS	Simon Says Stamp Dye Ink SLATE	Simon Says Stamp Dye Ink SMOKE
Simon Says Stamp Dye Ink FOG	Simon Says Stamp EMBOSSING POWDER CLEAR	Tim Holtz Sizzix DOT MATRIX & GRIDLOCK	Ranger Archival Ink Pad JET BLACK	Tim Holtz Distress Ink VICTORIAN VELVET
Winsor Newton COTMAN WATERCOLORS 12 TUBE SET	Dyan Reaveley SMALL CREATIVE JOURNAL Ranger	Ranger 12 x 12 SPECIALTY STAMPING PAPER	My Mind's Eye 6 x 6 WOOD Paper Pad	Neenah Classic Crest 80 LB SUPER SMOOTH SOLAR WHITE
Tim Holtz TISSUE TAPE SYMPHONY	Tim Holtz Idea-ology DECO SHEETS	Tim Holtz Idea-ology CHITCHAT STICKERS	Sizzix STARTER KIT Inksheets	Sizzix STANDARD TRANSFER PAD Inksheets
Sizzix WHITE SHEETS 4 x 6 Transfer Film Inksheets	Sizzix SILVER SHEETS Transfer Film Inksheets	Sizzix BLACK SHEETS Transfer Film Inksheets	Sizzix BIG SHOT MACHINE	Sizzix MAGNETIC PLATFORM
Sizzix STAMPER'S SECRET WEAPON	Tim Holtz Tonic Craft SCISSORS	3M Scotch PINK ATG ADVANCED TAPE GLIDER 1/4	Ranger Inkssentials INK BLENDING TOOL	Ranger Inkssentials GLOSSY ACCENTS
Ranger Inkssentials Non Stick CRAFT SHEET	Ranger Inkssentials US HEAT IT CRAFT TOOL	Ranger Inkssentials EUROPEAN HEAT IT CRAFT TOOL

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