Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Altenew Paint-A-Flower: Poppy Release Blog Hop + Giveaway


Hello! I'm so excited to help introduce a brand new product line to Altenew ... a monthly Paint-a-Flower stamp set! Each set features an outline image of a gorgeous floral arrangement, which is perfect for trying out new painting techniques, or for coloring with your favorite medium. Unlike the monthly Build-A-Flower sets where there are several layers, these sets are designed to stamp once and then color.

You may have come from the blog of Jen Schow, but if not feel free to start at the beginning with the Altenew Card Blog.


For these poppies, since I needed a lot of them, and their shape was fairly easy to cut out by hand, I decided to color them by ink smooshing. This method involves inking up a surface, misting it with water, and then placing your thick white paper in the pool of ink repeatedly. It's always fun to see what you end up with!


Once the smooshed ink was dry, I stamped the poppy on top of all the ink. Even though this technique has a lot of randomness attached to it, I did make sure to allow the front petals of the poppy to be mostly white. 


I planned out where I wanted the three flowers to be, and then I stamped the entire floral scene accordingly. Here's a peek at how messy it really is behind the florals,


But of course once you put the colored flowers on top, they hide it all. I couldn't wait to see how this one was going to turn out.

For the next two cards I went with the same coloring technique, just brighter versions of the colors.


This flower is stamped as a single poppy directly onto patterned paper. I chose a really light background paper so the leaves will show up after being colored, and more importantly, the flower remains the star!
 

I'm happy to report that this adorable sentiment, and all the sentiments in this post, came from this Poppy set.


It's also nice that the floral image is large enough that I only need to stamp it once on a card base. It looks perfectly fine as the only flower on the card. 


Finally, this card uses the three flowers like the first card does. Love all the concentration of colors with them grouped tightly together like this.
 

Unlike the first card, however, I left off the leaves and stem so I could use a different set of leaves that had a more modern style. Totally changes the look of the card!


After embossing the leaves in gold, the card didn't look right to me. I stared at it for awhile (do you ever do this too?!) And then I figured out what was wrong ... I need to repeat the gold somewhere else on the card. Using an embossing marker, I colored in the middles of each flower and then embossed them in gold. Much better!


And here they all are again! I really do love how they turned out!



Subscription:
There is a monthly subscription plan for the Paint-A-Flower. When signed up, you are guaranteed a spot in our monthly Paint-A-Flower releases and will receive a set each month - at a specially discounted price! ($15.99 →$12.99)

Prizes:
To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 6 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or Altenew Scrapbook Blog by 1/28/2020 for a chance to win.

We’ll also draw a winner to receive a $15 gift certificate from the comments left on each designer’s blog on the blog hop list below. All winners will be announced on the Altenew Card Blog on 1/30/2020.

Next Stop:
The next stop on this hop is one of my dear friends Virginia Lu, and I bet she's got something fabulous to share with you!

Thanks so much!
-Kelly

Supplies used (affiliate links included; thanks so much for your support!) 
http://shrsl.com/22nz5
PAF Poppy

56 comments:

  1. I like your idea of ink smooshing for quick coloring! Guess I should try it out, I'm not much into coloring :)

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  2. All so gorgeous!! Love the effects of the ink smooshing technique!

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  3. WOW! Gorgeous-ness creative and inspiration project! Coloring is absolutely stunning!

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  4. Thanks for the inspiration! Ink smooshing seems like something I can do - I'll have to give it a try with flowers!

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  5. Loving all your watercolor techniques!

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  6. Wow! All three cards are gorgeous and I love the ink smooshing idea for painting the poppies, because you could never get that look just by painting! Thanks for sharing a great technique idea! :)

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  7. Your smooshing technique is fascinating. I am going to try it! Great work.

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  8. Beautiful cards! I love your idea of ink smooshing the flowers. The resulting card is lovely.

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  9. Your flowers are gorgeous on the backgrounds.

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  10. Your cards are beautiful!! Ink smooshing was a fabulous idea.

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  11. Love the technique and the cards are gorgeous. I especially love the last card.

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  12. ERMAGERD KELLY! I am totally trying this technique tonight and I am in a swoon over that second card. I really love these because you can play in the paint and make a bunch and then cut out and use later. Always fun.

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  13. I have never tried that technique but you have inspired me Kelly! Beautiful!

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  14. What a fab trio of cards Kelly! I love the technique, thanks for sharing! This PAF set is gorgeous!

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  15. Great technique. The poppies look beautiful.

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  16. I love how you have 3 completely different looks with just one stamp set! Fantastic!

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  17. Wow! How beautiful. I love the look of the smooshed technique. My favorite was the one with the black and gold background.

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  18. I love them all! It's beautiful coloring and backgrounds!

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  19. Wow! Your 3 cards are lovely! Love the gold leaves on the black paper.

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  20. Wow these are beautiful cards! I just love this stamp set!

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  21. Gorgeous cards! Loving the poppies ♥

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  22. Amazing cards! I love them all.

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  23. Gorgeous creations! I especially love how you stamped multiple flowers and partially colored the background portion & fussy cut the individual flowers!

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  24. Your smooshed flowers are beautiful! These are marvelous cards Kelly!

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  25. Wow lots of beautiful arrangements.

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  26. Fabulous cards. Love those poppies ♥

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  27. oooh, these are all so pretty!! Loving this stamp set- my favorite flower...

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  28. Kelly, your cards are awesome. I love the smooshing technique results. Never tried it but I may now! Your backgrounds are beautiful as well.

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  29. Wow! These cards are stunning. So creative and beautiful.

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  30. Such gorgeous and dramatic cards. Thank you for sharing.

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  31. Absolutely love your "ink smooshed" flowers. They definitely take center stage on your cards.

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  32. I like this technique and how you adapted it differently to each of the cards.

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  33. Wow, gorgeous cards, and I love this ink smooshing technique, great to use up some of those backgrounds I made but don't know what to do with - thanks for pointing out these flowers are easy to fussy cut. LOVE the gold embossed centers and modern leaves for different look, brilliant!

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  34. Your cards are amazing!! Love the vibrant colors! Your techniques are spot on with the results. Bravo!!

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  35. Oh my gosh! How fabulous are those smoothed poppies. Wonderful idea for creating a bouquet.

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  36. I really liked the results of the ink smooshing technique. What kind of ink did you use and do you have a video of your technique?

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  37. These look great with the ink smooshing! I especially like the black and gold one.

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  38. Gorgeous card, beautiful colors. I love the ink smooshing technique, but I've used it only for backgrounds. Thanks for the inspiration to try something new.

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  39. Wow love these cards and how you have used that technique of smooshing for a totally different effect!

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  40. Wow what great backgrounds for and organic painted poppy. Love this look.

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  41. I am in love with the tartan plaid set. Soooo many ways to use that as a background stamp and such fun to play with in different color combinations.

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  42. Lovely trio of cards. I love the artsy flow of colour of the poppies and the various backgrounds you used - my favourite is a toss up between the soft gray and white dotted background, or that lovely gold embossing on the black!

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  43. Love all three cards! Your smooshing technique is really cool on this flower, and i really appreciate your showing how your card looks underneath the flowers! Helps explain to me the process. And the last card is my fave---while I don't always like a lot of gold, your embossing with these bold beautiful flowers, & the black background, really rock it! Thanks for all your inspiration.

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  44. Beautiful!!! Love how you colored the images. The gold on the last card make the design shine. TFS

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  45. Am in awe of the bright pinks and how versatile the poppy really is!

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  46. love every one of your cards, Kelly - but the last one is my absolute fave - the gold with the pinks on black is gorgeous!!

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  47. Your last card with the grey & gold is stunning! I’m going to try a similar technique! Thanks for the great idea.

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  48. I love your ink smooshing. I can never get it to look good but I will keep trying. Gorgeous cards!

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  49. Is this for a magazine spread, Kelly? Because it sure could be! These three designs are impeccably executed! Love the smooching, the way you stamped both your flower and the sediment directly on the pp, and the elegance of the gold leaves in your last design! Mwah! Hugs, Darnell

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  50. I like the backgrounds for these pretty flowers.

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  51. these are all gorgeous! Such a pretty technique for these beautiful flowers!

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  52. Just received my Poppy stamp set and was scrolling through the different designers for ideas and have absolutely fallen in love with your brightly smooshed flowers Kelly! All 3 cards are just lovely and can't wait to try this technique out with my set. :0)

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I absolutely love reading comments. Thanks so much for stopping by and taking the time to leave one! - Kelly