Watercolor Meadow Notebook Tutorial

Hello friends! It is a new month and a favorite month for me. During April, the Eileen Hull Inspiration Team has been sharing Notebook projects. Don't miss all the inspiration. A couple of weeks ago one of our neighbours showed us two spots in the vicinity where you could find two kinds of rare spring flowers: blue anemones, and pasque flowers. It was a really nice outing and it inspired the spring-themed notebook that I made today.

I was so happy to finally get to craft with Eileen's new Notebook die. Most of you already know that I love to make minibooks and notebooks, and this die has a great size and is a wonderful complement to, for example, the Wrapped Journal and the Journal dies. The finished size is 4 x 5 in.

One of the places we visited on our outing was an ancient grave, a barrow, which you can also see on the front of my notebook. I used watercolor paint together with Tim Holtz Distress Resist spray, to create the look of a white anemone field.

Start by die cutting the notebook from mat board and from watercolor canvas. Or you can use watercolor paper.

Glue the canvas or paper to the mat board and leave to dry under a heavy book.

Mist Distress Resist Spray on the background, focusing mainly on the meadow areas.

To mask out the birch trees, I used a Molotow Art Masking pen, which is very easy to use.

Paint the scene with watercolors. Don't worry about perfection here, paint loosely. 

When the paint is dry, carefully rub off the masking liquid.

Add details to the trunks, and add more shadows, to create depth.

To create the look of the blue and purple flowers, I splattered some acrylic paint on the background, holding a piece of scrap paper over the trees.

You can bind this journal in many different ways. I decided to punch some holes. Two at the bottom, two at the top and one in the center of the spine.

Cut papers 6.6 x 4.7 in (12 x 17 cm), fold and score. The amount of papers per signature depends on the thickness of the paper you use. The best thing with making your own notebooks is that you can use your favorite paper for the inserts. Stitch down the center, use staples, or leave them lose. 

Thread a piece of elastic as shown here. 

Tie the ends through a button at the spine.

Tie the ends, to create a closure mechanism.

I frayed the edges of the canvas slightly. Add some birds to the sky to create life.

Here's a close up of the birch trees and the shadows.

I kept the cover simpel and just added a Small Talk sticker.

The Distress Resist Spray gives a really cool, somewhat random effect. For more Distress Resist Spray inspiration check out my tag post from this Monday, showing two different backgrounds using the spray together with a stencil.

Folded out, the scene looks like this.

Tuck the signatures under the elastic. You can also add new signatures later on.

The back of the notebook.

The notebook is ready to be filled with sketches, notes and memories. This would make a great gift, and you can also use patterned papers instead, and fill the notebook with photos.

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.

Other supplies:

Fredrix Watercolor Canvas
Daler & Rowney Watercolor paint

Mist Resist Tutorial

Hi crafters! I hope you had a good weekend! We were busy with lots of sport related activities, but I also managed to squeeze in a visit to an antique fair. 

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Tag It challenge. Tags are so fun and versatile. They are a great canvas for an entire project and I love all the inspiration my tags give me. You can also use big or small tags to add journal or sentiments, or why not make a tag book? Don't miss the last project by our April guest designer Sabrina Perna. 

I made two tags this week, since I wanted to show two background techniques using Resist Spray and a single stencil. This is the same Gradient Dot stencil by Tim Holtz that I used on last week's project, so for even more inspiration on this stencil you can check out that post. There are also two smaller tags on each tags. Let's start.

I used Tim's Distress Resist Spray and first misted through the Gradient Dot stencil, onto watercolor paper. Take the stencil up, flip it around, and press it down on another area of the watercolor paper. You can even repeat this step one more time.

Die cut tags from the background. Smear Distress Inks on a craft sheet, mist with water and press the tags into the ink. Watch the resist magic happen. The tag to the right is the first misting from the step above, when misting through the tag. The tag to the left comes from when the stencil was flipped around pressed down on the paper. Both methods give a really cool effect.

I wanted big, bold sentiments and stamped them with the Mini Motivation set on white cardstock. The We R Memory Keepers Angle Corner Chomper tool make it very easy to do your own tags. It cuts perfect angles in two sizes. For many years, I tried to cut these angles by hand using a ruler and a craft knife, and this method is so much easier. Punch holes with a Crop-a-dile.

I misted some Bouquet Flowers, so that they would coordinate with the tags.

Stamp Flutter butterflies and color them with pencils. I used Prismacolor pencils. Die cut with the coordinating dies.

The first tag, with the white dots, and a mix of blue, teal and purple.

The small tags were die cut with Tim's Gift Tags set, from left-over inked papers.

I wanted pretty bold colors for the butterflies, so that they would stand out. Colored pencils work great for that, and are easy to use for the details.

Here you can see the cool textured effect from the Resist Spray. I will be back tomorrow with another project using the Resist Spray.

Here's the pink and red tag, with the flipped pattern on the background. This technique is also great for avoiding to waste left-over mist on a stencils. You can do it with colored mists too.

The butterfly was colored with the same shades of colors.

And a close-up of the resist background.

At the top of the tag, there was more mist on the stencil, which means that the dots aren't as visible. I love the unpredictable nature of this technique.

Some pretty flowers always give life and joy to a project.

I hope you will join us this week in our Tag It 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.

May Flowers Tag

Hello friends! I hope you had a lovely Easter! We have had gorgeous weather and have done lots of nice outings. Spring flowers are coming out everywhere and the leaves of the trees will come next. The latter might be my favorite part of spring, because all of a sudden, you have these fantastic shades of green everywhere. Those shades of green also inspired today's project.

 

This week at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog we have a Going Around in Circles theme. Dots and circles are some of my favorite elements and I am looking forward to seeing all the contributions. Remember to check out the project by our April guest designer Sabrina Perna. 

I made a tag inspired by May Flower pins. May Flower pins have been sold in Sweden since 1907, and the proceeds go to children in need. Every year the flowers have new colors, and lots of people collect them. We used to sell them when I was in school, and paper flowers for a good cause is of course a favorite of mine. :) On the tag, this year's flower is the focal point, surrounded by shades of green and bits of golden yellow. 

I started out by smearing embossing paste on a tag, through Tim Holtz's Gradient Dot stencil.

When the paste is dry, paint with watered-down Distress Paints. Mist with more water if needed.

When the paint was dry, I misted the tag with Buttercup mica spray, and did the same to the mulberry paper skeleton leaf. It makes it look like the leaf has been sprinkled with gold.

Apply glue with a glue stick around the edges and press a sheet of vintage gold foil on top, rub to transfer the foil.

The title letters were die cut from SSS Glimmery Sunshine paper, using the Archie Jr Solid die set. The die set is from the newest Blossoms and Butterflies release, and I also used it in two different ways in this post.

The circle elements were die cut using a SSS set that I discovered is no longer available, but you can get the same effect by die cutting circles in different shapes with other dies. There are lots of circle designs among the Simon Says Stamp exclusive collections. I applied glue on two of the circles and rubbed with the gold foil. This mimicked the pearl in the center of the flower perfectly.

The other circles were colored with Distress Inks.

The glimmery yellow numbers and letters were matted on white die cuts, to make them stand out better. I also used a Clippings Sticker.

Around the circle, I added pearls and Acrylic Bubbles, through which you can see the leaf.

The title translates to 'May Flowers'. The best thing with alphabet dies is that you can write any thing you would like, and you never run out of letters.

Here you can see the effect of the foil. It looks like gold leaf.

This year's flower is green and cream with a yellow center.

The tag and the leaf are very shiny, and you might see that better here.

I hope you will join us this week in our Going Around in Circles 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.

Watercolor Peonies Tutorial

Hello everyone! I am happy to have a new tutorial on the Simon Says Stamp store blog. It went up yesterday, but because of Easter, I totally forgot to post about it here.

Here's a sneak peek of the project, which would make a great Mother's Day gift. I used the Simon Says Stamp Pretty Peonies background stamp, and watercolored it with Distress Inks. It is a real quick and easy technique and you can find all the steps on the Simon Says Stamp Store blog.

Thank you for visiting! I will be back soon with a Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge post.

Happy stamping!

Anna-Karin

* 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.

Happy Easter

Hello everyone! I hope you are having a beautiful Easter, if you celebrate it. Here we have had lovely spring weather this whole weekend, and did lots of outings. We went to two areas to look at two different rare spring flowers, among other things. Because of the warm weather, the flowers are growing so fast, you can even see changes over night.

The boys and I also did some Easter crafts, such as these cute sparkly chickens. They were a part of a craft kit my mom sent us. I particularly like the idea of placing a flower as a hat on their heads, I'll remember that for future projects.

This was just a quick post to wish everyone Happy Easter. I will be back tomorrow with my Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge post.

Happy crafting and thank you for stopping by!

Anna-Karin