SSS Let's Connect Blog Hop

Hello friends! I am so happy to take part in the Simon Says Stamp blog hop for the new Let's Connect collection. You should have come here from the very creative Daniel West.

Let's Connect is full of beautiful stamps, dies, stencils, sequins and printed products. They are very versatile and can be used for many occasions. You can see the full release here.  If you use the code GLUE you will get a Gina K Designs Dot Runner with your order. This promotion will expire on 8/9 at 11:59 pm EDT.

I made an art journal page and a tag for the hop, with techniques combining inks and colored pencils. The techniques work on any kind of project.

My first project is an art journal page, but you can easily turn it into a card. I used the Spring Flowers background together with the Large Outline Happy. Lately, I have had fun combining Distress Inks with colored pencils, which is lots of fun and you can do it in many ways. I worked on a burlap page in Dina Wakley's Blue Edition Media Journal.

These are the products from Let's Connect that I will be using today: Spring Flowers Background, Large Outline Happy, Poppy Stem and Sunny Smiles. I am very happy to have three of my own designs in the Let's Connect release. I designed one of the stamp sets - Anna's Flowers - and two of the background stamps - Crackle Background and Reverse Crackle Background. It is so exciting to see other stampers creations with my stamps. The stamps are on their way here and I am looking forward to stamping with them. I happen to love crackle backgrounds. They can be used for entire backgrounds or just to add a little texture to something. Or how about crackled letters or die cuts?

I smeared Speckled Egg, Antique Linen and a little Vintage Photo on a non-stick craft sheet, misted with water and pressed watercolor paper into the ink. Let dry and repeat. After that I did the same thing, but with just a little Speckled Egg Distress Oxide ink, giving spots of chalky blue. 

Stamp the Spring Flowers background with dark brown ink on the dry background.

I used Prismacolor pencils to color the flowers. Pick out shades of blue and turquoise. Start with something looking a bit like this, applying darker shades towards the inside of the petals. 

Add a darker blue and then blend them together with a white pencil. Let some of the background show through. I worked quite fast and didn't worry too much about the details. Some of the stamped lines with disappear, but that just adds to the look. 

Continue until you have colored the whole background. If you want to you can stamp with a light ink, such as Pumice Stone or Antique Linen and do no-line coloring instead.

Splatter with a little White Gloss Acrylic Spray. Unscrew the cap and tap the end of the spritzer to create splatters.

Die cut the Large Outline Happy from White Diamond and Blue Ocean glimmery cardstock. I really like word dies since they are so versatile and useful.

Assemble the title and glue to the background. I completed it with two Clippings Stickers. There is also a piece of Tim Holtz Design Tape. The glimmery cardstock is very pretty. It is hard to see the glimmer on this photo.

Distress the edges and mat on another piece of watercolor paper. Stitch around it with a sewing machine. As you can see, I worked quickly when coloring, aiming for a lose look.

Stamp one of the butterflies from the Thoughtful Flowers set, from the Send Happiness release, on a scrap piece of inky paper. Add just a little color with a blue pencil. I also added more design tape and sentiments to the burlap.

And the summer sun sure shines today!

My second project is a bright tag, using the Poppy Stem die and the Sunny Smiles stencil set. I used lots of ink and color on this one. We had a very warm day yesterday when I created this, so the weather influenced my projects, a cooler blue for the morning, and this warm tag for the afternoon when it was starting to get way too warm in my studio.

Start by die cutting three Poppy Stems from heavystock paper.

Ink them with Distress Ink using an ink-blending tool.

Add color and details with colored pencils. The Distress Ink gives you a base color and with the pencils, you can add shading and details.

Finally, I added some details with a black pen and highlights with a white gel pen.

Ink a tag with yellow and a little green.

Use the large circle stencil from Sunny Smiles and ink with Fossilized Amber and Spiced Marmalade.

Use the line circle stencil and Spiced Marmalade to add the rays. Die cut the green area with the SSS Stitching Panel and remove some, but not all of the dots.

Stamp grass and sentiment from Thoughtful Flowers.

Use the stencil with the two dots from Sunny Smiles together with white acrylic paint to add dots to the background. 

When the paint is dry, repeat with Moon Dust Stickles, creating glittery dots. Use a palette knife to apply the glitter glue.

The sun is a great place for a sentiment, or you could add the smiley face which is a part of the Sunny Smiles stencil set.

The white paint makes the glitter dots a little brighter and also gives an outline.

If you want a less scribbly look to your flowers, just skip the part with the white and black pens. 

Bend the stem a little to make the flower face another way.

I like the texture from the Stitching Panel. The sentiment comes from one of SSS Sentiment Strips 4.

There are of course prizes to be won, and at each stop on the hop SSS is giving away a $25 coupon, randomly drawn from those who leave a comment. The winners will be posted post on the Simon Says Stamp store blog on Wednesday, the 12th of August.

Your next stop on the hop is my friend Karin Åkesdotter and she will show you wonderful card inspiration.

Here are all the stops along the hop:

Simon Says Stamp Blog

Laura Bassen

Debby Hughes

Amanda Korotkova

Caly Person

Heather Hoffman

Yoonsun Hur

Laurie Willison

Bobbi Lemanski

Betty Wright

Lin Brandyberry

Preeti Chandran

Dana Joy

Daniel West

Anna-Karin Evaldsson (you are here)

Karin Åkesdotter

For more Let's Connect inspiration, remember to check out the Let's Connect gallery at SSS, and if you make something with products from the range, it is fun if you post it in the gallery too. There are galleries for all releases, and for the card kits, full of inspiration. Part one of the Let's Connect blog hop was yesterday, so don't miss all the inspiration there.

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.

* I added the three products I designed to the list too.