Ladybug Notebooks Tutorial

Hello everyone! I hope you had a good weekend! Here, things are returning to our normal routine. It is surprising how much longer it takes to pack school bags when you didn't have to do it for quite some time. I am so glad I don't need to pack lunch in the mornings, since they get food at school. 

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Back to School theme, very fitting for this time of the year. Don't miss the wonderful project by our August guest designer Anne Redfern.

I made four notebooks, which have already been given away as teacher's gifts. Handmade notebooks are such great little gifts, and you can easily make them fit a certain person, interest or occasion. Since I made four of these books, I kept the design pretty simple, with the focus on a very true quote by Nelson Mandela from the SSS Thank You Teacher set, and a beautiful ladybug stamp.

I used watercolor paper for the covers and stamped the ladybug from Tim Holtz's Entomology set in three places and once on the back cover.

Smear Candied Apple Distress Ink on a craft sheet, mist with water and watercolor the ladybugs. Leave a white highlight.

I wanted the ladybugs to keep both their bright red color and the white highlight and protected them with a thin layer of Distress Micro Glaze. The glaze is waterproof and protects the ladybugs in the following step.

Smear Distress Inks on the craft sheet, mist with water and press the papers into the ink. This is such a quick way of coloring paper and as you can see, the ladybugs stayed just as they were.

Stamp sentiments with black ink.

For a little texture, stamp the dot stamp from Tim's Tiny Textures set here and there and emboss with white ink. Cut Sizzix Little Sizzles Mat Board to the same size as your watercolor paper. Mine were 4 x 6 in (10.5 x 15 cm). Adhere the watercolor paper with Matte Medium and place under a heavy book. Round the outer corners when dry.

The final touch on these covers is Glossy Accents on top of the ladybugs - put aside to dry.

Use a Crop-A-Dile to punch holes in the covers and cut papers for the inside, slightly smaller than the covers. Bind with Tim Holtz Mini Book Rings.

For the inside, I used a mix of white and kraft papers, rounding the outer corners for a finished look. You can also use patterned paper, or maybe watercolor paper. One of the great things with making your own notebooks, is that you get to pick the inside paper yourself. I am not very fond of the lined, often flimsy paper, you find in a lot of store bought notebooks.

These are quick to make, and if you want more details on the cover, you can just add more stamping. I like to keep notebooks quite flat and rarely use dimensional items, but you can of course add embellishments such as flowers too.

Don't worry if the embossing powder strays, it leaves additional texture. I didn't remove any stray powder on purpose.

This is such a great quote, and a little extra special for us because of our South African connection. I have even seen Nelson Mandela in real life twice, albeit from a distance.

On the back cover, I just stamped a single ladybug.

The covers are pretty similar, except for that I placed the stamps a little differently on this one.

The Glossy Accents gives a really nice look to the ladybugs and make them look and feel dimensional.

I just had to add one more photo of the ladybugs with their glossy surface.

I hope you will join us this week in our Back to School challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 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.

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.

Mist, ink and splatters tutorial

Hello friends! We are home after having had a wonderful time visiting my family. We spent time in a cabin at the sea, built sand castles, collected shells, went for walks, did a lot of different outings, some watercolor painting, took a ton of photos, went to a combined zoo/amusement/water park, went to one big and one small island, and swam in lakes and in the sea. The weather was warm (too warm some days) and sunny the whole time, and yesterday we had our first rainy day since the beginning of May. I took a lovely walk in the rain.

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Sprinkles and Splatters theme. I hope you can join us and don't forget to check out the beautiful project by our August guest designer Anne Redfern.

The theme made me think of the sea, water and splatters and I also used different splatters on the page. I like having some pages in my art journals that are clearly seasonal, and when looking through a journal it makes me remember the time and season when I made the page. So here is a super summery page. We didn't see any palm trees on this holiday, but I thought it was fun to use those stamps any way, symbolising a relaxing time at the beach. I used stamps and dies from Simon Says Stamp Friendly Frolic and Good Vibes releases.

On a piece of watercolor paper, white emboss the background scenic stamp from the Surf's Up set. I cut the paper so that it would fit into my Small Creative Journal, but you can of course use a bigger or smaller paper, or make a card instead. 

Use the coordinating Surf's Up die set to die cut a circle from SSS Masking Paper. Also, die cut the word 'happy' from the masking paper. Adhere to the watercolor paper. I smeared a little Distress Micro Glaze around the circle.

Mist the page with Distress Spray Stain. I wanted a sandy look at the bottom and water/sky for the top. Mist quite far above the paper to create a splattered look.

Remove the masks. I particularly like the look of the word.

Stamp images from Surf's Up on watercolor paper. All except the towel were stamped with black ink.

Smear Distress Inks on a craft sheet, mist with water and pick up with a paint brush. Watercolor the images. Die cut three clouds from SSS White Diamond glimmery cardstock. Die cut the colored images with the coordinating dies.

Smear more Distress Ink on the craft sheet and watercolor the scenic background. The wavy parts in the foreground can be both water and beach, and the half circle that I turned into a big sun, can also be a tropical island.

I have a thing for small sentiment stamps and these from the Tabbed Sentiments set are great and so versatile. They coordinate with the Simple Tabs die set, but quite a few also fit perfectly on the little clouds.

Splatter some white paint on the background - do this before stamping the background with sentiments - but because I forgot, I simply covered up the words with pieces of paper to avoid splattering paint on them.

Die cutting words or shapes from masking paper is a fun technique which gives a great result. You can also use it with ink or paint.

The cloud die is also from the Surf's Up set. Clouds are a fun element to add to scenes.

I am seeing lots of future uses for this scenic background, reaching beyond seascapes and beach scenes. Stamp it with black ink for a different look.

You can see the effect of the Distress Micro Glaze that I smeared around the circle here. I could have added a bit more. I really like this sentiment stamp.

Let the inks mix and blend into each other when watercoloring and leave some areas white for highlights.

The buckets are so cute. Our favorite beach has perfect sand castle building sand.

I forgot to color the beak of these funny little birds.

Another great sentiment from the Tabbed Sentiments set.

I hope you will join us this week in our Sprinkles and Splatters challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 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.

Thank you for visiting 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.

Tape It Up Journal Page

Hi all! I hope you are all well!! We have had a fun week of summer activities. We are trying to swim in as many lakes as possible in the vicinty. It's a lot of fun and every lake has its own special character.

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Tape It Up theme and since it is the first Monday of a new month, the team is showcasing the products by a specific company / designer. The turn has come to Jane Davenport who has a fabulous range of mixed media products. You don't have to use Jane's products to join, but it is always fun if you do. 

Our August guest designer is the wonderful Anne Redfern. Her blog is full of creative inspiration, and I hope you will stop by there.

I made a playful and kind off unplanned journal page this week, focusing on Jane's gorgeous washi tape. I really like the colors, watercolor look, and words on the tape. The flowers and scribbles were drawn with her Inkredible pen. The page was done in my Jane Davenport 9 x 6 Mixed Media Canvas Cover Journal, which has watercolor pages.

For the background I used Paper Artsy's Infusions. Mist the page with water, sprinkle on a little bit of infusions and mist again to blend more.

I selected a mix of Strips and Phrases Washi and Strips and Phrases Journal Mixed Media tapes, with different colors, faces and words.

I wasn't quite sure what to do next and started to doodle flowers and some words with Jane's pretty Inkredible pen and teal ink. You can use different colored ink cartridges in the pen. The doodling and handwritten words fitted well with the 'put you into your art' sentiment on one of the tape pieces.

More pretty tapes and messy doodles. 

It is fun to mix and tear pieces of the tapes and arrange on a page, and very quick too.

The dandelion hair of this woman is stunning and such a fun idea.

I hope you will join us this week in our Tape It Up challenge. As always, you have a chance to win a $50 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.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by 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.