Watercolor Daffodils Tutorial

Happy Easter! The sun is shining and this is the warmest day so far this year. I have a no-line watercoloring project to share today.

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Daffodils are closely associated with Easter and spring here and have such interesting shapes. My daffodils are a little darker than normally, since I wanted them to stand out from the background and not be too pale. The flowers were stamped with a Simon Says Stamp Daffodil Stems stamp and watercolored with Zig Kuretake Gansai Tambi paint.

Stamp the daffodils from Simon Says Stamp Daffodil Stems on watercolor paper with Antique Linen ink. Mist a couple of times with water before stamping.

Mix shades of yellow and orange and start watercoloring. Don't worry about perfection. I mixed paint in a palette, as well as used some paint right from the pans.

Use a couple of shades of green for the leaves and stems.

Paint a grassy area for the daffodils to grow from and add shading to the flowers and leaves.

Paint the sky with a soft blue mix.

Make the sky a little darker at the top and darken the shadows under the flower. Splatter with green and orange paint.

When the splatters were dry, I added some highlights with a white gel pen. 'March' comes from Simon Says Stamp Document It. 

Splatters can add texture and movement. 

I distressed the edge and matted the panel on Simon Says Stamp Green Leaf cardstock. The cardbase is folded Simon Says Stamp Sunshine. Pierce holes and stitch a border with three strands of DMC embroidery thread. 

Thank you so much for stopping by here today! 

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

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Stitched Notebook

Hello friends! Today I have a notebook/journal tutorial to share, for a notebook with a stitched binding. If you don't want to make a notebook, the cover can easily be turned into a card instead.

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I love to make my own notebooks and sketchbooks. They are also great gifts. This notebook is 5x6 in, a folded Tim Holtz Backdrops paper. The Backdrops papers are so gorgeous and make for great notebook or journal covers. I stamped a dragonfly image on the cover and colored it with pencils. The dragonfly was also stamped on Clearly For Art Modeling Film. Later, I might have removed the modeling film dragon fly, but only because it was a little too dimensional for my liking. 

Fold a piece of Backdrops Vol 4 paper in half and stamp the dragonfly image from Stamper's Anonymous Classics #1 on the cover.

Color the dragonfly with colored pencils. I used Prismacolors. Use a white pencil to blend the colors.

Add details to the dragonfly with a black pen and a white gel pen. Don't worry about getting it perfect, since that is not the point.

Stamp circles from Simon Says Stamp Mix and Match Circles and various sentiments on the background.

I wanted the title to have the exact same colors as the dragonfly and used the pencils to color another piece of Backdrops paper. I created an ombre effect.

Use Tim Holtz Alphanumeric Emporium dies to die cut the letter.

Stamp the dragonfly with Stazon Jet Black on Wendy Vecchi Clearly For Art Modeling Film. 

Cut the dragonfly out and color the body with alcohol ink.

Gently heat with a heat tool and shape the wings. Be careful not to burn yourself. The film keeps its shape perfectly.

Add Distress Stickles Moon Dust to the back of the wings and let dry.

Cut inserts from your paper of choice. In this case, I used fairly light-weight notebook paper, which can take fountain pens without problems. Make a template first by piercing holes through a folded piece of paper. As you can see the inserts are larger than the cover.

After you pierced through all the layers, it looks like this.

I stitched the book using three strands of DMC embroidery thread using a saddle stitch. Tie it on the inside.

I trimmed the inserts and a tiny bit of the covers to get a notebook where the pages went right up to the edges of the cover. Normally, I make the pages slightly smaller than the cover, but since I used thinner paper than what I usually use, it was possible to trim through them all at once. 

Using colored pencils to color the paper before die cutting creates a nice effect and the paper is satin smooth.

Stamp some of the circles off the edge for a finished look.

The Moon Dust Stickles gives a great shimmer to the wings of the dragonfly. 

The Clearly For Art Modeling Film is one of my favorite surfaces and you dan do many techniques with it. 

Even though I loved the dimensional dragonfly, I decided to remove it. Since the cover and the inside pages are pretty thin, it bothered me when I was writing in the book. I might put it back again, or I will use it on another project instead.

The white and black pen details add movement and life to the wings.

Here's another look at the stitch. If you want to, use a contrasting or bright colored thread instead.

Since the Backdrops papers are double-sided, the inside covers are patterned too.

Here's another look at the notebook without the Modeling Film dragonfly.

Thank you so much for stopping by here today! 

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

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Circle Mosaic Tag Tutorial

Hello friends! I hope you are well and had a good weekend. We had sun, rain and some snow. 

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This week we have an Emboss It theme at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog. It is also the last week for our March guest designer Ann Chuang. Be sure to check out the stunning card she has created.

I combined heat and dry embossing on this tag, for a quick textured background. The background technique can be done with many types of embossing folders. The tag was embellished with flowers made with various flower dies by Simon Says Stamp, and vellum leaves. 

I started out with an inky watercolor paper left-over from another project. It had been inked with Uncharted Mariner Distress Ink. Die cut a tag from the paper. Drag an embossing ink over Tim Holtz Mosaic embossing folder and emboss. Cover with white embossing powder and return the excess to the jar. Emboss. Do not touch the melted powder until it has cooled down completely.

Ink with first Uncharted Mariner and then Scorched Timber, in a pattern following the circles of the design. 

The flowers were die cut from watercolor paper which had been colored with Distress Inks. I made three shades of pink paper. Smear the inks on a non-stick craft sheet, mist with water and press the paper into the ink. Let dry and repeat. 

I also made three shades of orange/peach papers, using the inks you see on the photo.

Die cut Simon Says Stamp Layered Rosebud from the pink papers.

Shape the petals with Tim Holtz Shaping Kit. 

The orange flowers were die cut using the Dreamy Daisy Layers and the Etched Magnolia Blossom.

Again, shape with Tim Holtz Shaping Tool Kit. 

The May Arts Faux Silk Ribbon was dyed with Distress Ink to coordinate with the tag.

Tie the ribbons to the top of the tag.

The sentiment comes from Tim Holtz Tiny Text and was stamped on one of the inked papers and matted on vellum. The little heart beads have been in my stash for many years and were bought in a tiny craft shop in South Africa, long ago.

The texture from the combined dry and heat embossing is pretty cool. Don't worry about stray embossing powder since it only adds to the effect.

Glue the flowers together and add a pearl to the center of the orange ones.

Glue the pieces of the rose together as shown here.

The leaves were die cut from vellum using Simon Says Stamp Tattered Leaves.

The flowers are quite dimensional. If you want to make a flatter project, layer the flowers without shaping the petals first.

I hope you will join us this week in our Emboss It challenge. You have a chance to win a $25 gift voucher to do some fun shopping at Simon Says Stamp. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

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.