Hi everyone! I hope you had a great weekend! We had a fun weekend full of activities. The local outdoor pool close to where we live opened this weekend, so we were there both days. We also took a pretty long walk and Anton swam in one of the lakes - in fact, in the lake you see on the layout below.
This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Touchy Feely challenge - which you can interpret in different ways. I went with the theme of texture, since I love texture, which makes you want to reach out and touch a project.
Don't miss the stunning project by our June guest designer Anne Redfern.

I wanted to mix a lot of textures on my project, while trying to keep it relatively simple and not too busy. When looking through my photos, I came up on the one to the right and the tree texture made me want to use it here. It's a pretty cool tree that we sometimes walk past on our walks. I was in a hurry this week, so there are unfortunately no step photos. I started with a piece of watercolor paper that had been coloured with Distress Inks. The photo to the left folds up to reveal the journaling.

Texture paste tends to soak up some of the Distress Ink, and if you want to avoid that and keep it looking white, add a tiny bit of white paint to the paste before smearing it through the stencil with a palette knife. The circles were die cut with one of my favourite SSS dies, the Circle Loops.

I used Tim Holtz's Motif cardstock as a base and inked it to make the dots stand out more clearly. The vellum was embossed in a the Numeric folder. Vellum looks great dry embossed.

Texture can also be achieved by using various surfaces, such as burlap, cork and felt. The hearts were die cut with the SSS Clipping Hearts die, from cork and wool felt. The title letters are die cut with with Tim's Deco Alpha die.

I also used some brand new SSS stamps, from the Cherished collection. These words are from the Thoughtful Messages set. The clouds were die cut from white wool felt.

To add another texture, I adhered white sticky-back canvas to mat board and die cut the rest of the title from that. It translates 'My treehouse'.

I also tucked in a little cheesecloth under the watercolor paper and distressed the edges of the watercolor paper, both of which add texture.

Two tiny hearts and a word stamped inside a die cut circle.

Finally, I die cut the Spinner Trail from kraft cardstock and 'you' from wool felt. I like to use this word die on the kid's pages.
I hope you will join us this week in our Touchy Feely challenge and explore some new textures for your projects. As every week, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.



