Bright and Cheerful Tag

Hi friends! I hope you are well. We have just returned from almost four weeks in South Africa. We left right after our unwanted move, and had a fun time visiting friends, family and old and new places.  It was great to get away from the boxes, but not fun to return to the chaotic state of the new place. We lost a lot of storage space in the move too, and it is a challenge to get things in order.

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Bright and Cheerful theme. Lots of possibilities with this theme. Don't miss the last project by our July guest designer,  Kerstin F with her wonderful blog Scrapbook Dreams.

Almost all of my stash are still in boxes waiting to be unpacked, but luckily, I found my box of scraps and made a tag using only scraps, glue, a tiny attacher and a pair of scissors. By using small pieces of colorful papers you can create a fun and interesting background. Some of the pieces that I used were watercolored, some were colored with distress ink, and some had been painted with acrylic paint. The latter were left over from a color theory course and I almost threw them away when I was packing for the move.

One of the best finds in my scrap box were these flowers, also made from scrap papers, using Tim Holtz's Funky Floral 1 and Funky Floral 2. The flowers were left over from my Flower Power tag. The small words were cut from the Chatter Design Tape.

Even the sentiments came from the scrap box, since my inks are still MIA, although I have luckily located the box today and will unpack it as soon as possible. This sentiment comes from the SSS Explore Nature set. I also found a strip of silver corrugated card, which fit the tag well.

Here are more of the flowers. I was lucky to even find some leaves.

Small pieces of vellum were stapled to the background, for extra interest.

The main sentiment was also in my scrap box, stamped using Mermaid Lagoon (I think) Distress Ink and Tim's Life Quotes set.

I hope you will join us this week in our Bright and Cheerful 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.

Quick Notebooks Tutorial

Hello friends! I hope you are well! We had a great week, which included time at the sea and a visit from old friends whom I hadn't seen for over eight years.

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Not A Card theme. Don't miss the project by our July guest Kerstin F with her wonderful blog Scrapbook Dreams.

I like having some handmade notebooks and mini-books around, which can be used for quick gifts. My supply was running low, so I decided to make three new ones. Tim Holtz's Layers Remnant cards are so pretty that you hardly want to cover anything of them up, which also made them perfect notebook covers. Just pick you favorite ones and use them for the covers. 

The flower card to the left was a little bit too small, so I layered it on another card. Cut two covers from mat board for each notebook. Glue the images to the mat board with Matte Medium and leave under a heavy book until dry. For the backs, I used patterned papers.

Round two of the corners with a Corner Chomper tool, for a finished look and sand the covers slightly, especially the edges.

Ink the edges. The ink will stick more to the sanded areas.

The best thing with making your own notebooks, is that you can fill them with your favorite papers. Do you want a watercolor journal, pick watercolor paper. For a sketch book or ordinary notebook, pick sketchbook or another smoother paper. Punch holes with a Crop-a-Dile.

Bind the notebooks with Tim's Mini Book Rings.

I didn't want to cover too much of the papers up, and die cut Adventure Words from kraft core paper, sanding them slightly.

I kept this notebook for myself, since I really like the vintage butterfly print. Perfect for small sketches and little notes.

For the back of the notebooks, I used patterned papers. This is the back of the butterfly notebook.

Here's a notebook for travelling adventures, or maybe just exploring the little things close by.

Here you can see the effect of the sanding and then inking. The ink is darker where the top surface has been sanded off.

The back of the explore journal.

The third notebook has a pretty floral image. If you want to use an image that is too small for a notebook on the cover, just mount it on a larger neutral Layers Remnants image or patterned paper.

And a floral patterned paper for the back of the notebook.

You can make these in any theme and they are great for using leftover patterned papers too, especially those papers that are almost to pretty to cover up with something. As a notebook cover, the images and papers can shine on their own. I also prefer notebooks that don't have 3-D embellishments, which tend to hook on things if you carry them around. These fit easily in a small handbag or even in a pocket.

I hope you will join us this week in our Not A Card 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.

Dinosaur Cards Tutorial

Hello friends! It's a new Monday and the sun is shining. I hope you get some crafty time in during summer. I was hoping to have done more watercolor painting, but there is still time for that. 

This week at the  Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have an Animal Magic theme. We also have a special Tim Holtz feature this week, and as I am sure you already know, I love to craft with Tim's wonderful stamps, dies, stencils, embellishments, papers, inks and paints. You can find them all here. You don't have to use Tim's products to join, but it is always fun if you do. 

Tim Holtz is also the Brand of the Month at Simon Says Stamp during July, and don't miss all the inspiration and surprises.

I have one dinosaur crazy little boy at home and he loves Tim's Prehistoric set. I used the set to make three dinosaur cards. You will see the third one later in this post, I could only fit two into the photo. The dinos are such fun to die cut, color and assemble, and you can make them in lots of colors. 

Start by die cutting the T-Rex, Stegosaurus and Brachiosaurus from watercolor paper. Try to keep the pieces together.

Smear Distress Inks on a non-stick craft sheet, mist with water and watercolor the dinos. 

When dry, stamp the T-Rex and Stegosaurus with a crackle texture stamp, and the Brachiosaurus with a splatter stamp.

Assemble the dinos, using foam dots for some of the pieces, such as the legs. Use a pen to give each one an eye.

For the background, I used a piece of watercolor paper on which I had pressed down the Gradient Dot Stencil, after having used it with Distress Resist Spray on another project. You can see the process and that project here in my Mist Resist Tags post. The papers were colored by smearing Distress Inks on a craft sheet and misting with water, using similar inks as for the dinos.

I also embossed three pieces of brown kraft cardstock in the 3-D Lumber Texture Fade, and later sanded them.

 

I am not sure which of the dinos is my favorite. Here's the gentle Brachiosaurus, dreaming with her head among the treetops. The sentiment was die cut from gold paper and sanded a little bit. The main panel was layered on burlap, and then on the embossed paper.

The stamped texture adds a great element to the dinos. The darker color on the Brachiosaurus is Pine Needles, a Distress Ink color that I should use more often.

The second card features a brave Stegosaurus, with pretty red plates.

Fold the top plates out a bit and place small pieces of foam adhesive underneath, to add dimension.

I glued the inside pieces of the letters into the shape, since I have always preferred letters with the inside pieces, and not just an open space.

And finally, the friendly (?) T-Rex comes to say 'hello'. Distress the edges of the panels to add instant texture and to give a nice feel to the card.

Here you can see the different layers, embossed lumber paper, burlap, and the Distress Resist Spray paper. I just love the random distressed effect of this technique.

For a fiercer look, give her some sharp teeth.

I hope you will join us this week in our Animal Magic 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.