Autumn Blooms Card

Hello stampers! It is so beautiful outdoors with all the shades of autumn and I was inspired to create an autumn-themed card, using watercolor stamping and an easy background technique. 

My card is a square card, a little larger than 6x6, folded at the top. I was inspired by the last autumn flowers and by the beautiful flower husks that you can find in nature now and created a card using only yellows, oranges and some browns. I used the Simon Says Stamp Laugh in Flowers set and Circle Pattern Background stamp, from the STAMPtember release.

Start by white embossing the Circle Pattern Background on watercolor paper. I love circle and dot background stamps and this was designed to be a versatile stamp, which can be used for many themes and techniques.

Smear Distress Inks on a non-stick craft sheet and mist with water. Press the paper into the ink. Let dry and repeat if you want stronger colors or more texture.

When dry, I watercolored some of the dots in the background, to make them stand out, while still keeping a tone-on-tone effect. Smear the inks on the non-stick craft sheet, mist once with water and pick up with a paint brush.

Next, I inked up the tree floral stamp from Laugh in Flowers with various shades of Distress Ink, using two or three shades on each flower. Mist about three times with water and stamp on watercolor paper.

I was having so much fun stamping with yellow and brown shades that I stamped a whole lot of flowers. I love watercolor stamping and the fact that you can still see the fine details, such as the thin stems between the flowers on the Queen Anne's Lace.

I wanted to share some close-ups too, since I only used a few of the flowers on the card.

This flower was stamped with Antique Linen and Vintage Photo. 

Here I used Fossilized Amber combined with various browns. Vintage photo gives a warmer and slightly lighter brown than Ground Espresso. You can see the two combined on the flower to the right.

On these, I think I used Antique Linen, Frayed Burlap and a little Vintage Photo and Ground Espresso.

When you mist with more water, you will see fewer details, but using too little water makes the watercolor effect less visible. If you look at the two dandelions in the middle, I used a bit too little water on the one to the right and a little too much on the one to the left. But it of course depends on the look that you want. Sometimes I am after a very watery look, but today, I wanted to keep some details. 

Cut out the flowers you want to use and layer them on the background. 

Adding color to just some of the dots makes for an interesting background. You can also use contrasting colors.

The sentiment also comes from the Laugh in Flowers set. For more inspiration with this stamp set, check out my Cling Wrap Watercolor Floral Tutorial.

At the bottom of the card, I added two pieces of Mummy Cloth, which had been dyed with Distress Ink, and three fibers that I found on my desk.

I die cut the leaves with the SSS Tender Leaves die, from watercolor paper and from gold paper. The watercolor ones were colored with Distress Inks. 

You can see the shine from the gold leaves better here.

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.

Wax Paper Resist Video Tutorial

Hello stampers! Today I have a video tutorial with a fun resist technique using wax paper, die cutting and dye ink.

I hadn't used wax paper techniques in a long time. They are such fun to do and gives great texture and patterns. This is a an easy technique and you can experiment with different dies and colors. I used the Simon Says Stamp Detail Ringlet Plate for the background. I made lots of backgrounds and turned two of them into butterfly cards.

Start by die cutting the Detail Ringlet Plate from watercolor paper and wax paper in one go, placing the wax paper between the watercolor paper and the die. This is also a great method for die cutting intricate dies, which is actually what I had initially planned to do. But then the wax paper looked so pretty, that I switched techniques.

Here is the video, if you want to watch it in HD click here to come to YouTube. You have to excuse my inky hands in the video - I had already made quite a few backgrounds before I decided to do a video. I had picked blueberries too, which stain my hands badly. So it was either a video with inky/blueberry hands, or no video at all.

White emboss butterflies from Simon Says Stamp Beautiful Butterflies set on vellum.

Color them at the back with Prismacolor pencils. As you can see, the back doesn't have to be pretty.

I picked one of the brown and blue/turquoise backgrounds for this card. The leaves were die cut from old book paper with the Tender Leaves die.

As you can see here, there are two large butterflies layered on top of each other, to give dimension.

White emboss a sentiment from Beautiful Butterflies on the background.

The brown color at the back of the butterfly is just barely visible.

On this butterfly, there is more open space and you can see the colors better.

I stitched around the panel with my sewing machine and added some sequins.

The second card has shades of orange, blue and green. I like how this color combo turned out. It's very cheerful.

There are two big layered butterflies on this card too.

I like the look of this orange butterfly, with all the lovely details. Note that I didn't flick off the stray embossing powder, but kept it for extra texture. Check out my Stray Embossing Powder tutorial for more inspiration on this technique.

On this card, I used pearls instead of sequins as embellishments. The Beautiful Butterflies set is so pretty. 

Just because also comes from the Beautiful Butterflies set.

This sentiment was stamped with SSS Melon ink.

Here are some photos where you can see the different textures. Since the wax paper was sandwiched between two sheets of watercolor paper, you get different patterns on each side, since the wax transfers differently. A more dotty pattern to the left, similar to the die cut, and a different, more solid, but also more textured pattern to the left.

I just love the dotted pattern from the Detail Ringlet Plate die.

It is the paper to the right that was used for the lighter card. I can't remember if I added another color here, maybe Cracked Pistachio, to get that shade of green. It was one of the first backgrounds that I made, before the video.

These were both made in the video. You will get a different result every time you use this technique.

Try using different color combos and test doing the technique with other dies too.

Beautiful textures. I think this is the background that I used for the blue and brown card.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that it inspired you to use wax paper for resist techniques. 

Just two more days remain of  STAMPtember®, but the stamping inspiration will remain. 

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.

Circle Photo Frame Card

Hello stampers! The month is flying by and we are having beautiful warm autumn weather at the moment. Today I have a slimline card to share with you, with a pretty floral watercolor stamped background.

We are celebrating STAMPtember® this whole month at Simon Says Stamp. It is Monday and at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have an Add a photo theme this week. I love to add photos to my projects, so this was a fun theme for me (which is the case every week). It is the last week for our September guest designer Tracy Ware, She created such a beautiful card for this week. 

Remember that I wrote that I had mixed up the dates for last week's steampunk challenge, this is the card that I had done for last Monday - and you might recognize it from the sneak peek I posted on Instagram. I used six old family photos featuring my grandmother and since the card was ready a week early, I could send this to my Mom before she saw it on the blog. The background was done with Simon Says Stamp Anna's Flowers and Crackle Background, from the Let's Connect release.

Start by die cutting a piece of watercolor paper to the size of the card that you want to make. If you don't make a slimline card, you can just leave the lower part of the card and focus on the circle frames. Die cut the frames with the Repeating Circles die.

Silhouette flowers like these from Anna's Flowers are perfect for watercolor stamping techniques, which is what I did here. I started with the lightest Tumbled Glass and then stamped the darker colors. Mist the inked stamp with water about three times before stamping. You need less water for the small stamps. 

When dry, stamp the Crackle Background with light brown ink. The ink I used was no longer available at SSS, but you can use Vintage Photo Archival Ink or Simon Says Stamp Khaki ink instead.

Stamp sentiments from Anna's Flowers with black ink, so that they will stand out well.

I used one of Simon's beautiful slimline envelopes and stamped it with the same flowers from Anna's Flowers. But this time, I stamped it with Simon Says Stamp inks, instead of with Distress Ink. Don't the flower stamps look gorgeous with the turquoise ink?

Ink the edges of the card and the circles and then adhere small photos behind the windows. I like how the light blue flower frames the photo to the left.

I die cut the SSS Tender Leaves from vellum. The dot design looks gorgeous die cut from vellum. I also used one of Simon's sentiment strips and added some pearls.

It is really fun to sit and do watercolor stamping in layers like this, and you don't need to worry about perfect impressions. Experiment with different color combos.

The card together with the front of the envelope.

And with the back of the envelope. 

I hope you will join us this week in our Add a Photo 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.

Just three more days remain of  STAMPtember®, but the stamping inspiration will remain. 

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.