Favorite Projects of 2020

Happy New Year! I hope 2021 is going to be a good year, much better than 2020. I meant to post this yesterday, but didn't have time to finish the post. At the end of each year, I look back at all my posts from the year and pick some of my favorite projects. I am not good at picking favorites, since I like almost all projects, for different reasons. 

I enjoy looking back at my projects from the year and it gives a sense of perspective. It is easy to feel that the time has flown by, but when I look at the projects I did at the beginning of the year, it still feels pretty long ago. This year, that is even more the case, because there is very clear line when it became clear that Covid-19 would be a very serious thing.

A big thank you to everyone who takes the time to look at my projects, posts comments here and on my social media channels and click on affiliate links. I really appreciate it and I hope that my projects inspire creativity and art making. 

Click on the photo or the ink to find the tutorial.

I really enjoyed stamping and painting this winter scene. I wish I could go on a holiday to that little house.

I like the dimension and textures of this Rusty Heart Tag.

This Peony Mixed Media 6 x 6 in canvas was one of my projects from February. It's got a fun mix of textures.

As you probably know, I love birds and this stamped Patchwork Bird tag was such fun to make.

We have come to the end of March, and the Covid-pandemic is starting to be visible in some of my projects, such as this mixed media layout, using an older photo of my dad and the boys. 

I have made quite a few sketchbooks and journals this year and I enjoy either giving them away or using them myself. This is a Vintage Nature Journal.

I really enjoyed the techniques on these two tags: Watercolor Floral on Black Background and Flowers on White Background.  

I like the mix of words, embossing powder and mica flakes on this Honeybee Artist Trading Card and I also picked it since I have just finished editing two videos for my sister's honeybee business.

Covid is especially visible in my art journals, such as with this 2 Metres Apart page. And who would have thought I'd make an art journal page about toilet paper. 

I had such fun making this Magical Gnome Forest tag, from the glitter dots in the background, to the mushrooms and the small shrink plastic gnomes.

One of the absolute highlights of this year was designing stamps for Simon Says Stamp and this art journal page was my first project with my first set, Thoughtful Flowers. 

These three Wildflowers No-line Stamping and Coloring cards were made with the same stamp set. I have used my colored pencils a lot this year.

One fun thing this year has been the release of the new Tim Holtz Ranger Distress colors and I have enjoyed making a tag with each new color as it arrived. This is the Speckled Egg tag. I also made tags with Crackling Campfire and Rustic Wilderness.

I really like using scraps and this Distress Ink Blocks card was one of those projects. 

This Happy art journal page is another colored pencil project. Using colored pencils on an inky or watercolor background is a really fun technique.

I also made some video tutorials, even though I would have liked to have done more. This Double Embossing project was lots of fun to do and I really like the look of the background.

And now for some color on this Colorful Floral art journal page, colored with Scribble Sticks.

One of the highlights of my summer was picking lots and lots of blueberries in the forest. We still have a quite a few bags left in the freezer and I often add them to my cereal bowl in the morning. It is like eating a little bit of sunshine. This Blueberries with Ink and Pencil page was inspired by all that blueberry picking.

For these cards I enjoyed revisiting a favorite technique, creating texture with watercolors and cling wrap.

These two cards were also done for my Wax Paper Resist video tutorial, another really fun texture technique with watercolors and embossing folders.

One of my favorite autumn projects this year was my Mushroom Tag, with a lovely glittery dry embossed background.

Another project I really enjoyed doing was this Watercolor Apples art journal page. I love apples and it was fun looking at reference photos and trying to get the colors of each kind of apple right.

I love to do projects with a transparent, yet colorful background, such as this one for my Cardinal tag.

It seems that I have enjoyed using the fabric pages in my Dina Wakley Media Journals a lot this year. This Honeycomb Patchwork is also another project using a lot of scrap papers and many small sentiment stamps.

My December Journal usually makes it onto this list. Now it is filled with memories from December 2020. 

I added too many projects here! As usual. I am really bad at picking favorites - favorite book, favorite movie, favorite color (all of them!).

Thank you so much for all your support and comments through the past year! Now let's head into 2021 with hope for a better year. 

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

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