Monthly Mail Art – January 2017 – Simon Says Stamp

– [Kristina] Hi
everyone, Kristina here. Welcome to another video at
my YouTube channel and blog. This video was originally
created for Simon Says Stamp and it’s going to be a
monthly feature for their blog and I’m so thankful that
they’re allowing me to share it here on my YouTube
channel and blog as well. So I hope you guys
will really love this. This is going to be
a monthly feature where I try out mail art. So I’m gonna start out with the We R Memory
Keepers Punch Board, the 1-2-3 Punch Board and I’m
looking at the envelope sizes and making sure I have
the paper size just right. So I’m going to cut down
my paper to 8-1/4 square. And I’m using some
Strathmore Bristol paper. I’m using this
paper in particular because I’m going to be using
some Zig Clean Color markers and this paper also holds
up really well to water. So it’s great for
water coloring. So I’ve lined up my
paper at the 3-5/8 mark over on the left
side of that punch, I’ve punched my paper, and
then without moving the paper I’m going to use the scoring
tool that comes with the board and run it along the line A. I think that’s what it
is, yeah envelope line A. So then I rotate my envelope
and I move that over until the score line matches
up with a little groove that’s up by the punch. If you don’t wanna
like deal with that just remember it goes to 4-5/8. So the first
measurement was 3-5/8 and then you rotate
it and go to 4-5/8 and you do the same thing
as you rotate this around. So now I’m back to the
opposite side where I started. So I’m measuring at 3-5/8
and I’m punching and scoring. And I’m gonna do
that last rotation and bring it over to 4-5/8
then I’ll go ahead and punch and then use that score
line A once again. This is going to
create my envelope for a standard size A2 card. So I have all the score lines. I’m not going to fold
anything down yet but I am going to tape the
envelope down to a board. This is going to not only kind
of map out the center area where I’ll be working but it will also help prevent
this paper from warping while I do some water
coloring on top. So I’m using some
additional Post-it tape to mask off the flaps just because I’m doing
some ink blending and I want to
protect those areas and make sure they don’t
get hit by any of the ink. So I’m starting out with
Squeezed Lemonade Distress Ink and a mini round blending tool. And I blended that kind
of around the center area. Now I’m using Carved Pumpkin and then I’m gonna bring
in Picked Raspberry and then Seedless Preserves and then I’ll be ending
with Chipped Sapphire. The idea behind this blending is that I’m going to use
that stamp set from Lawn Fawn and have a little scene
over on the left-hand side of my envelope and there’s
going to be a fairy that’s kind of floating up
above with her little fairy wand and I want the center area
to look like it’s glowing like something magical is
happening in the center. And that’s also where I’m going
to have the mailing address. So I wanna make sure that the
center area is nice and bright and the color kind of fades in from the edges of the envelope. I think this is a really
fun way to make sure that the envelope
is still legible so that it is going to be
able to go through the mail, the postal system but
that it’s still fun and something creative. So I’m gonna stamp
this flower here but I’m gonna take a baby wipe and just take off
the bottom portion so that I can extend
that flower stem and make it really tall. So I’ll go ahead
and stamp that down. And then I’m going
to stamp the fairy. This is the one that
I mentioned before, and I also added her little
fairy wand off of her hand. And then I took that
same flower stamp and I did the same
thing I did before, I just wiped off the ink
from the bottom portion so that I can have it
extend down even taller. So I’m using a
waterproof black pen to draw in those lines and
then I’ll be able to watercolor over the top of these and I won’t have any
black ink smudging. Using that same pen
to draw in some ground underneath the little house,
the little fairy house, and then I’m gonna
go into coloring. Like I said before, I’m using some Zig Clean
Color Real Brush Markers and also a water brush. This is a small Aquash
brush from Pentel and I really love
to use a water brush with these markers in particular because they blend so
well on Bristol paper. They blend like a dream. (laughs) And I also wanted to mention that the ink blending that I did it does behave a little bit
differently on Bristol paper as opposed to a
regular cardstock. Bristol paper has a little
bit of a coating on it and that’s what prevents
any moisture or ink or things like that from soaking
into the paper too quickly. So as you’re ink blending
you have a little bit of time to really get some nice blends. I know I sped up the video
so maybe you didn’t see it but there were a couple times, especially when I was
using Seedless Preserves, where my ink blending tool
came down pretty sharply onto my Bristol paper and it
left like a stamp of the foam but I was able to
kind of blend that out even though the ink was
already on the paper. And you can’t necessarily do
that with regular cardstock. So it just behaves a
little bit differently. I really like the blending. You get a really soft
blend on Bristol paper because the inks don’t
absorb quite as quickly. So if you really want to have
a really faded, ethereal blend maybe try Bristol paper even if you’re not going
to be water coloring just because I really
think especially for those who are starting out
with ink blending you’ll have a much better result and it will be a little
bit less frustrating to get what you’re looking for. So after I had all of those
little areas painted in I took my water brush and I
just added some water circles, water dots kind of up into
that ink blended area. Distress Ink reactivates
with moisture. So this is going to give
me some nice white spots. I thought it would sort of look a little
bit like fairly lights or little twinkly lights
or anything like that. Just give it more
of a whimsical look. And this is a way to do that
without having to add sequins or things like that
because of course that would come off of the
surface of the envelope when it is mailed. So I’m adding more
of those little dots and I’m just using a paper
towel to dab up that color and you’re left behind
with those little droplets. So now I’m gonna take
some Post-it tape and I’m going to kind
of do a practice run of the recipient’s name. I’m going to be sending
this envelope and a card, once I make it, to
my friend Kelly Marie who is one of the
co-owners of Lawn Fawn. And so I thought I would
send it to Kelly Marie care of the Lawn
Fawn Business Office. So first I’m stamping
out the letters from that Concord
& 9th stamp set because I wanna make sure I
get the spacing just right and then I can move
back up to my envelope, kind of place it where I think where I’m actually going
to have it be stamped and then I can use a pencil
and make a little mark so I know exactly where
to begin stamping. This is gonna give me a
better idea of where to start. Especially if you’ve
already finished the rest of your envelope
and you’re adding this as a last step, it’s
always a good idea to kind of do a test run. So I particularly
love this stamp set because you can
customize the name and there’s also the
scripted very fancy lettering and there’s also
these capital letters. So you can mix those together
and it looks really nice. I’m going to use that
same waterproof black pen that I used to finish the
flower stems and the ground under the house to
write in the address of the Lawn Fawn
Business Office. So as I go about this
series for Simon Says Stamp I will be using some
different business addresses or addresses where people
have given me permission to share them in videos online. I’m usually very
particular and careful about sharing addresses online because you just never know. But for this I thought
it’d be kind of fun to send it to different
companies and use their stamps on the envelope. So in this case it’s
going to be Lawn Fawn because I used that
fairy stamp set. So I’m gonna take off those
blue strips of painter’s tape and then I can
assemble my envelope. And I love taking the tape
off and take masking paper or masking tape off
because it’s so fun to see everything all finished. So I folded up the sides and then I put a little
strip of Express-It tape. This is a really
strong adhesive. And I also cut the tip
of that bottom flap so that it was nice and straight
going across the envelope and you can definitely,
you don’t have to do that but I decided I wanted to. So there’s the envelope. I’m gonna leave it open until
I have a card to put inside. I only have a
couple things to do to finish off this envelope. And one has to happen
before the other. I’ve added my postage
stamps onto my envelope and now that everything
is completely finished I’m going to add some
Distress Micro Glaze. This Micro Glaze is particularly
formulated or it works well to cover areas of artwork
that you want to make sure that they’re water resistant. And like I showed you earlier
with those little dots that I added with
my water brush, this Distress Ink, if
there’s water added, if it gets a little
bit of rainwater on it when it’s going through the
mail or anything like that it would really
ruin my envelope. So I wanna make sure that
I have a nice slick surface of this Micro Glaze to
protect all of my stamping and water coloring
and ink blending. So one thing I did wanna mention is that you wanna make sure
that everything you’ve worked on is completely dry, you’ve
given it some time to dry so that it doesn’t
smudge anything. I had a little bit
of kind of softening of the Kelly Marie area because
I think that pigment ink wasn’t quite dry. But in the end when I
buffed the Micro Glaze off with a paper towel
it really cleaned up a lot of what had
been smeared around. So all in all it turned
out really, really well. And the Micro Glaze
really does protect all of that artwork
that I’ve done previous. So it’s a really fun step and it’s the last
thing you wanna do, especially after
your postage stamps, because otherwise
those won’t adhere. Thank you so much for
watching today’s video. I will be back in one month
for another mail art video. Until then, thank you
so much for watching and I will see you
in the next video. (happy upbeat music)