Doodle Tag Tutorial

Hello crafters! It is Monday and I hope your weekend was a good one. Today I have a tag to share with some doodling and other fun elements. It is the last day of this month and tomorrow STAMPtember® begins at Simon Says Stamp. It is a month-long celebration of stamping, with wonderful new products and inspiration and surprises every day. Best month of the year! 

This week we have an Oodles of Doodles theme at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog. Don't miss the last project by our August guest designer, Anne Redfern. We are so happy that Anne could share projects with us this month. 

I used both some actual doodling, aiming for it to be pretty messy and imperfect, and used the Simon Says Stamp Circle Doodles Background stamp. The background comes from a Double Embossing video tutorial that I posted on Saturday. One of the background was turned into a card and for today's post, I thought I'd use the second background. 

You can see how I made the background in this Double Embossing post. Die cut a tag from the background.

I splattered some black Scribble Stick on the tag, for more texture. Doodle a little around the edge and around some of the circles and added some Tim Holtz Specimen rub-ons.

Die cut hearts with the SSS Windows to My Heart die from Neenah cardstock.

Doodle circles in the same style as the background. I did this fast, not aiming for a perfect result.

Color the circles with Tombow Dual Brush Markers. I also die cut the hearts from black glittery cardstock.

Die cut the Bold Hello word from a Tim Holtz Journal Card. Doodle a wiggly border around the edges.

Layer the doodle hearts on top of the glitter hearts, leaving a thin border. 

I colored the hearts quickly, leaving some white here and there.

The tag got something of a number theme, with the three hearts and lots of rub-on number. 

Mummy cloth was dyed with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and I also used a piece of Tim Holtz Label Tape. 'Sunshine' was stamped with the Thoughtful Flowers set.

Add some sequins as an extra touch.

I hope you will join us this week in our Oodles Of Doodles challenge. You have a chance to win a $25 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! Don't miss the start of STAMPtember®tomorrow!

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.

Double Embossing Video Tutorial

Hello stampers! Today I have a fun tutorial for you, for a double embossed textured background. It is both a stepped tutorial and a video tutorial.

I made a card with this fun double embossed background. The background almost has a 3-D effect, and lots of texture. It is an unpredictable technique and you never know exactly what you will get, which is fun, since you might get a surprise. I used Simon Says Stamp stamps and dies in combination with Ranger embossing powders and Distress Ink. Since I didn't mean for this to be a tutorial as I was only testing something, I didn't take step photos from the start, which is why I decided to do a video instead. Let's start with the video.

Click here to watch it in HD.

For the background, I used the Simon Says Stamp Doodle Circles Background stamp. The powders are: Blueberry Speckle, Lime Mixed Media and SSS White. As you could see in the video, I lined up the stamps too perfectly for that background, so although it is still very cool, I did like my first background a little better. I didn't have time to redo the video and thought it wasn't necessary. In my first background, the white embossing is not lined up as well with the colored embossing, so you get more of a shadow effect. 

I also splattered some white gloss spray on the background.

The SSS Large Outline Happy die comes from the Let's Connect release and was die cut from one of Tim Holtz Journal Cards and from watercolor paper that had been colored with brown shades of Distress Ink.

I decided that I wanted some glitter and smeared Moon Dust Stickles over the letters.

Die cut the Poppy Stem from old book paper. If the old book paper is too thin (mine was), glue it to a piece of cardstock before die cutting.

Ink them slightly with a Detail Blending Tool.

I also added a pearl to the center of the flowers.

Here are some close-ups of the texture and double embossing.

The white and colored embossing powder looks nice together with the shades of Distress Ink.

Another look at the circles.

I stapled two pieces of twine to the base of the card.

This is the sheet that I made in the video. I only added one layer of inking to this one, so that you can see the difference. It gives a cleaner and less distressed look.

Both of them together. I like both, but the one to the left has a more subtle overlapping effect.

Since the lines were stamped so close together, the white powder melted together with the green and the blue powder, which also created a nice effect.

Here the circles line up almost completely. I have no idea how I managed to do that without a stamp positioner. I didn't even try to line them up!

The Stickles gives a great look to the die cut letters. The small sentiment was stamped with Thoughtful Flowers. For more inspiration using the Large Outline Happy die, check out my Happy Textured Background (also with a video) and Happy Art Journal page.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog today! I will be back on Monday with a project using background you saw in the video.

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.

Sunny Seascape Tutorial

Hello crafters! I have a mixed media tutorial to share today with easy techniques for how to create a sunny seaside scene. It can easily be adopted to different formats and I made both a wall-hanging and a tag to show that.

Here is the wall-hanging. It's 6 x 8.5 in. You can use just a few of the techniques on a project or all of them as here. On the tag below, you will see that I simplified the process and skipped some of the steps. I used Distress Paint and various pastes by Ranger/Tim Holtz. The stamps are from the Simon Says Stamp Your Light set.

 

I worked on a piece of Little Sizzles mat board, but you can also use chipboard. Apply a layer of gesso. I made wave patterns at the bottom, but later decided to also collage some paper to the background, so you can skip that and just apply a thin layer of gesso.

Glue torn pieces of old book paper to the background. Add a layer of matte medium on top of the paper too.

When the matte medium is dry, continue with a layer of gesso. Here I added texture and patterns - both as rays in the sky and as waves in the ocean.

Start painting the sun and its reflection using two shades of yellow.

Continue with the sky and the ocean, with three shades of blue. Water-down the paint a little.

Apply Opaque Grit-Paste as a sandy beach. Try to create the look of dunes.

When dry, paint with Antique Linen and a little Walnut Stain.

When dry, apply Translucent Grit-Paste through Tim Holtz Rays stencil. Let dry.

Dry brush yellow and white paint on the rays to make them stand out more.

Place the stencil back and apply a layer of Matte Medium to the rays. Sprinkle Rock Candy Distress Glitter on top. 

Dye Mica Flakes with Butterscotch alcohol ink and glue to the background with Glossy Accents. Also add some Mica Flakes which aren't dyed.

The mix of gesso rays, paint, translucent grit-paste, glitter and mica makes for an interesting looking sun.

The text can be seen partially through some of the paste and glitter rays, but is mainly visible in between the rays, adding depth. I also glued some pearls to the background.

Stamp a part of the sentiment just below the horizon line. 

Stamp the ship from Your Light on white cardstock and color lightly with colored pencils. Cut out and glue to the background. The second part of the sentiment was stamped below the ship.

I added the yellow mica flakes to the areas with sunshine or sun reflections and used the normal flakes in the blue and sand areas. I really like how they all glimmer in the light.

The tag is very similar to the wall-hanger, just on a smaller scale. I also skipped the grit-paste and glitter rays in the sky. That made the gesso and paint rays more visible. The scene was left peaceful, with just two sentiments and some pearls.

Here you can see the gesso rays better. Don't forget that you can make patterns and texture with gesso. It makes for an interesting background element.

Stamp the sentiment in the sea.

By dry-brushing the sand with a dark brown, you make the grit-paste textures more visible.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. It is a great way of keeping the memories and warmth of summer for the colder seasons. You can of course also use the techniques for other types of projects and themes.

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.