SSS Believe in the Season Blog Hop

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! I am so happy to take part in the Simon Says Stamp Believe in the Season Blog Hop today, in celebration of their new release. You should have come here from the fabulous Kelly Latevola.

I love Christmas and winter crafting and the Believe in the Season release is packed with wonderful new dies and stamps. Many of them will work perfectly for other themes too, not only for Christmas.

You can see the full Believe in the Season release here. Don't miss all the inspiration along the hop, and of course there are prizes to be won too.

I made an art journal page and a card, and both are stepped tutorials. Let's start with the journal page.

The Believe in the Season dies and stamps are not only great for cardmaking, but also for art journaling and scrapbooking. I made a peaceful winter scene for my art journal, building a forest of trees standing in deep snow. If you'd rather make a card, you can easily adapt the design to work on a smaller surface. The techniques I am sharing are, as usual, applicable to lots of different projects. 

These are the stamps from Believe in the Season that I used: Circle Doodle Background, Color Me Trees, and Poinsettia.

And these are the dies: Peyton Ornament, Corbel Tree Collage and Northern Lights Snowflakes. I also added a few additional SSS dies. 

Working on watercolour paper, white emboss the small shapes from Color Me Trees on the upper two-thirds of the paper. There are stars, snowflakes, hearts and circles. Apply Distress Micro Glaze sparingly with your finger in a few areas to create clouds. I also added a dot inside the circle stamps.

The scene was painted with Prima's watercolours, using three shades of blue and one of purple. As you can see, the embossed impressions will resist the paint, as will the areas where Micro Glaze was applied. I really love Micro Glaze, it produces such great textured results.

 

White emboss the Circle Doodle Background on Simon Says Stamp vellum.

Cut out one larger piece from the circles, following the outlines of circles, and a bunch of smaller pieces. Layer them to create the look of rollings snowy hills. This is such a versatile stamp, I'll be using it a lot.

White emboss trees on watercolour paper, cut out and colour with watercolours. These patterned trees are so pretty, and there is a coordinating die cut set too. As you can see, the one to the right coordinates with the Circle Doodle Background.

The Northern Lights Snowflakes and Corbel Tree Collage were die cut from the lovely SSS Glimmery Cardstock.

I also die cut the Winter Snow words from the Glimmery Cardstock, here with a darker shadow piece underneath.

I love doing these types of watercolour backgrounds, combined with resist techniques. The result is different each time and the textures are wonderful.

If you look at the circle stamps, you can see that there is some Distress Micro Glaze inside them, while the rest of the embossed shape tends to be a little darker than the background on the inside, since the watercolour pigments get 'trapped' by the embossing and dry darker.

When it comes to winter crafting, one of my favourite things is to think out ways to give the look of snow, and when I saw the Circle Doodle Background, I immediately thought it would work well for snow.

I also die cut a tree from white Glimmery cardstock, which was cut a little shorter, so that it looks like it is further away in the distance.

Tuck the trees in among the snow.

 Here you can see the shimmery effect of the cardstock a little better.

At the bottom of the page, there is a border of the Northern Lights Snowflakes, a piece of Deco Tape and a second die cut word.

 I used Small Talk stickers for my journaling.

 

I also made a quick Christmas card. I found a piece of watercolour cardstock in my scrap folder, which had been misted with Distress Spray Stains and decided to use that. The card has a transparent base, which was stamped with the Circle Doodle Background. My favourite part is the bauble, you'll see how I created it below.

 The Peyton Ornament die is so pretty, and I just love the intricate look along the edge of the paper.

 Die cut a second bauble and paint the top silver.

I wanted to create the look of vintage baubles, similar to baubles that I remember my grandmother to have had, and thought the Prima Dresden pieces would work well. They were glued down with Glossy Accents.

 Then I coated the bauble in Glossy Accents, and when that was dry, I added a second layer.

As with any glossy shape, it is a little hard to see how nice it looks on a photo, but you might be able to see it a little better here. The Dresden pieces are embedded in the Glossy Accents, which makes the bauble look like it is made of vintage glass.

The Circle Doodle Background was stamped on a folded pieces of Clearly for Art Modeling Film, with Cotton White ink.

The sentiment comes from the Poinsettia set and was stamped with two different colours ink from Hero Arts Vintage Metallic Steel ink pad.

 

To continue the circle theme from the background, I die cut the Circle Loops from silver Deco Sheet. It is best to adhere the Deco Sheet to a piece of cardstock before die cutting.

I glued a piece of silver embroidery floss as a hanger for the bauble.

Glue the bauble in place. You can also use a different coloured background for the bauble too. I bet it would look really nice in black. At the side of the bauble, there is another piece of die cut Circle Loops.

Here you can see the card on a white background. You could easily make a whole bunch of these for Christmas, since they are pretty quick. Just allow enough time for the Glossy Accents to dry. I had such fun crafting with these Believe in the Season products.

Every participant in the hop will pick a winner for a $25 gift voucher, among posted comments. You have until Monday, October 24th at 8 p.m. EST to enter. Next stop is the wonderful Barb Engler, and I am sure you will enjoy her cardmaking inspiration. If you get lost along the hop, you can go back to Simon Says Stamp.

Here are all the stops along the hop:

Simon Says Stamp

Laura Bassen

Debby Hughes

Kristina Werner

Jennifer McGuire

Kathy Racoosin

Suzy Plantamura

Nina Marie Trapani

Nichol Spohrs

Yana Smakula

Wanda Guess

Heather Ruwe

Kelly Latevola

Anna-Karin Evaldsson (you are here)

Barb Engler

Shari Carroll

Heather Hoffman

Thank you so much for visiting my blog!! And have a fantastic weekend!

Happy stamping!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

Simon Says Stamp NORTHERN LIGHTS SNOWFLAKES	Simon Says Stamp PEYTON ORNAMENT	Simon Says Stamp CORBEL TREE COLLAGE	Simon Says Cling Stamps CIRCLE DOODLE BACKGROUND	Simon Says Clear Stamps COLOR ME TREES
Simon Says Clear Stamps POINSETTIA	Simon Says Stamp CIRCLE LOOPS	Simon Says Stamp WINTER SNOW	Dyan Reaveley SMALL CREATIVE JOURNAL Ranger	Simon Says Stamp Cardstock GLIMMERY ASSORTMENT PACK
Simon Says Stamp VELLUM	Tim Holtz Idea-ology DECO SHEETS	Wendy Vecchi Modeling Film CLEAR	Canson MONTVAL SPIRAL WATERCOLOR 9x12	Prima Flowers DAISY CHAIN LARGE SILVER Dresden
Tim Holtz Idea-ology DECO TAPE	Tim Holtz Idea-ology SMALL TALK Stickers	Tim Holtz OCCASIONS Small Talk	Hero Arts Ombre VINTAGE METALLIC STEEL	Tsukineko Stazon COTTON WHITE
Prima Flowers DECADENT PIES Watercolor		Prima Flowers THE CLASSICS Watercolor Confections	Tim Holtz DISTRESS MICRO GLAZE	Tim Holtz Distress Spray Stain WEATHERED WOOD
Tim Holtz Distress Spray Stain TUMBLED GLASS	Ranger Paint Dabber SILVER METALLIC	Simon Says Stamp EMBOSSING POWDER WHITE	Tsukineko Versamark EMBOSS INK	Sizzix DIE BRUSH AND FOAM PAD
Ranger Inkssentials PIPETTE	Tim Holtz TINY ATTACHER Stapler	Sizzix BIG SHOT MACHINE Gray And White	Sizzix MAGNETIC PLATFORM	Sizzix MINT Standard Cutting Pads
Hero Arts SMALL BLOCK TRIO CLEAR ACRYLIC BLOCKS	Hero Arts CLEAR ACRYLIC BLOCK 3 by 3	Tim Holtz Tonic GUILLOTINE COMFORT PAPER TRIMMER	Ranger Inkssentials Non Stick CRAFT SHEET	Ranger Inkssentials GLOSSY ACCENTS
Ranger Inkssentials US HEAT IT CRAFT TOOL	Ranger Inkssentials EUROPEAN HEAT IT CRAFT TOOL	3M Scotch PINK ATG ADVANCED TAPE GLIDER 1/4	Tim Holtz Tonic Craft SCISSORS

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