Tuesday, September 22, 2020

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


Hi Friends! I'm happy to share the latest in the Altenew Paint-a-Flower series, the Paint-a-Flower Carnation Stamp Set. The carnation is a workhorse in many flower arrangements due to its long lasting beauty and its wide availability. Sending a card featuring this well-known bloom is sure to resonate with your recipient.

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


Just like using carnations to fill in real arrangements, I thought I'd fill up the card base with stamped carnations. I stamped the set of carnations in one corner, and then rotated and stamped in each of the other three corners to fill the card.



The frilly petals on these flowers make them easy to watercolor in a random pattern. After putting down a light watercolor, I grab a lot more paint on my brush to go in and darken the centers. I've only used two different shades of red for these blooms.


The sentiments in this set are fantastic. Along with the many primary script words, there also several secondary smaller sentiments to pair them with. The small font size makes adding an embossed sentiment on black cardstock a little more subtle, which I appreciate.

It was fun to spend a bit of time coloring in a flower I was so familiar with. This is also a flower that comes in many different colors (naturally and unnaturally, as florists tend to take a lot of liberties with altering its color) so you have a wide window of hues to select from.

Giveaway Prizes:
To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $20 gift certificate to 3 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog by 9/27/2020 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 Winners Page on 09/30/2020.

Special Offer:
Get 20% off on the Soothe and Smooth Watercolor Paper Bundle until 9/23/2020 at 11:59 PM EDT. Not valid on previous purchases. Not valid on previous purchases. Shop HERE → https://altenew.com/products/soothe-and-smooth-watercolor-paper-bundle
I would like to send you now to the next talented blogger in this hop, Nichol Spohr!


Blog Hop Order:

Supplies Used (thanks for your support!)

PAF: Carnation


Thursday, September 10, 2020

Altenew Beauty of the Season Stamps/Dies/Stencils/Embossing Folders Release Blog Hop + Giveaway


Hi Friends! The title of this blog hop really says it all ... the "beauty of the season" is without a doubt in all the latest Altenew stamps, dies and embossing folders. There are projects for days in this new release, you'll never want to leave your crafty space!

You may have come from the blog of Keisha Charles, but if not feel free to start at the beginning with the Altenew Card Blog.
 
Embossing/Debossing Folders:


The Mega Hello Debossing Die is pretty darn amazing ... it creates a giant "hello" that spans the entire horizontal length of an A2-sized card. So easy!! You could totally create a collection of cards in rainbow colors in just minutes.


Instead of creating a collection of cards in rainbow colors, I brought the rainbow to the debossed sentiment! Although it requires a bullet-tipped marker, and a steady hand in the thin areas (like the loop of the "h"), it's fairly easy to color in the debossed areas.


Adding a sentiment across the debossed "hello" finishes this clean and simple card.


Another folder in the collection that's being released is the Beautiful Bergenia 3D Embossing Folder. Instead of debossing/sinking the design, this folder embosses/raises the design.


The name of the folder contains the word "3D" and here you can see the reason why. There are so many different levels to the design, it's just so luxurious!



With an element like this that is so special, not much else is needed to complete the design. I colored in the negative spaces with an alcohol marker to make the white, embossed florals stand out.

3D Dies


Such a great idea, here's a set of dies that will create a massive 3D poinsettia with scored ribbing in the leaves!


Along with paper, these dies are great to use with felt!! I am soooo pleased with how well it turned out! I have the poinsettia on a card here, but this felt beauty would be great on a package, on a stem stuck in a vase, or even on your lapel!


The sentiment is from another new holiday set with lots of holiday phrases, the Holiday Tag Sentiments Set

Layered Stamp Sets


I do have a lot of floral image stamp sets, so I'm usually pretty picky about adding new ones to my collection. This one I knew right away I needed to get ... the Positive Vibes Stamp Set. The size is small enough to either feature in the middle of a card, or to stamp multiple times like I've done here.


The other selling point to me is the ease of coloring. There are just two layers for the flowers and two layers for the leaves, yet it still results in an engaging image.


Another bonus with this set is all the sentiments that come with it. True friends are indeed everything!

Another new layered set is the Season's Tweetings Stamp Set, which is a non-floral set. It contains all you need to build two beautiful cardinals, a banner for them to hold your message on, a branch, and a ton of winter-related sentiments in an awesomely scripted font.


 After stamping the two different colors for the main body of the cardinals, and then a few different stamps for the face/eye/beak, I got out my colored pencils and added some details to the wings, breast and tail 



I also turned the tree branch into evergreen tree branches by adding lots of needles. The length of this design with the two birds holding a banner works perfectly on a slimline card. If you want to use this design on a standard A2-sized card, you can still do this, but you would just have the heads of the birds on each end.


Finally, for a super quick project, I picked one of the seven-ish sentiments and embossed it in gold on a beveled subway tile.


Such an elegant font that makes this easy project look really classy.

Giveaway Prizes:
To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 3 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog by 9/15/2020 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 Winners Page on 09/18/2020.


I'm pleased to send you to the next stop on this hop, Lilith Eeckels!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
-Kelly


Supplies Used (Thanks so much for your support of my blog and projects!)

Mega Hello DebossingFolder
Beautiful Bergenia Embossing Folder
Holiday Tag Sentiments
Positive Vibes Stamp Set
Season's Tweetings Stamp Set







Monday, September 7, 2020

Altenew Craft-A-Flower: Anemone Release Blog Hop + Giveaway



Hi Friends! Welcome to the latest Craft-a-Flower blog hop, featuring the beautiful Craft-A-Flower: Anemone Layering Die Set. 

You may have come from the blog of Nicole Watt, but if not please start at the beginning with the Altenew Blog.

CAF: Anemone

There are two layering flowers and two layering leaves that come with this set. Having two flowers/leaves is nice from a design perspective as well as from an efficiency perspective. Putting two sets of dies through your die cutting machine gives you two flowers with the same amount of work. 


The details on these dies are so gorgeous! Let's take a closer look!


These beauties are created with cardstock from the Cherry Blossom set, some leftover purple scraps for the centers, and some shades of gray for the leaves.


The nice thing about not having green leaves is the focus is more on the flowers. I added a sparkly gold leaf to fill in a lack of ink coverage on the card base. Although unintentional, I like how the gold leaf ties in with the gold sentiment, and is a differently colored neutral than the gray leaves.


The amount of texture and dimension you get with these layered floral sets is just amazing! You really just want to sit there and run your fingers over the layers. The background is one I've had in my rejects pile from a prior project, so I'm happy to use up some scraps.


I had another set of floral pieces so I made another card. Because I knew I was going to use a blush colored card base, I made the highlight color on the flower a bright white.


Again, the texture!! Heart eyes : ) I still hadn't used the new Burlap Texture Die so I thought I'd throw in just a little more texture. Why not? This burlap die is a stunner and so useful when you want something in the background of your florals.


The "hello" die is cut out from the recent Hello Greetings Circle die, and in the same paper I used for the spine of the card on the left. 

As I was cleaning up my desk after these two cards, I had some spare flower bases that I was putting away. Once they were out of context as a flower base, it dawned on me that they looked exactly like a cotton ball! I just had to make ONE MORE card, hahaha ...

 
To my surprise, not only do the flower bases look like a cotton boll, BUT the leaf base looks a heck of a lot like the brown base of the cotton boll!


I cut two strips of brown for the stems and adhered both cotton bolls on the card. The Sentiment Strips Die Set is used on this card as well as the first card in this post.


The background is stamped with the Spheres and Spirals Stamp Set and is just what I was looking for to fill that space.



I was really happy with the set of cards I got from this new CAF die set. And who know there was also a cotton boll hiding in there?!

Giveaway Prizes
To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 5 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog by 9/13/2020 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 Winners Page on 09/15/2020.

I'm happy to send you over to the master of clean and simple, Laurie Willison

Thanks so much for stopping by!
-Kelly

Supplies Used (affiliate links included, thanks so much for your support of my projects!)




CAF: Anemone

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Altenew Build-A-Flower: Clover Release Blog Hop + Giveaway


Hello Friends! Welcome to the Altenew Build-a-Flower: Clover blog hop, where we are featuring the compact, round floral beauty, the clover. This blog hop starts at none other than the Altenew Card Blog, which is where you may have come from.



I made two different cards with this set ... one card using the solid leaf shapes, and another more traditional card using the layered stamps for the flower and leaves.

Here's what this set looks like ... two different clover flower heads, and two different sets of leaves.



These neat, compact blooms are easy to assemble into a bouquet because they are all pretty uniform in shape. There's not a lot of floral arranging you need to know how to do.



The background is from sponging ink through the useful Linear Stencil and then adding some gold spatters. The wavy edge circle is actually a leftover I still had on my desk from the recent Layered Geometric Cover Die. There's always a use for everything ... don't toss your leftovers! (unless they are piling all over your desk, then maybe a periodic purge is in order)



The pretty sentiment is one that's included in this set.



For a bonus card, I stamped the two different solid leaf stamps randomly on the card base and added some gold spatter.



This card features the other sentiment included in this set. As much as I love the florals, any time a good sentiment is included in a set, I get so happy. This sentiment is one I can use many, many times. I embossed it in gold on a few of the Diamond Dies.

Giveaway Prizes
To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 5 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog by 9/7/2020 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 Winners Page on 09/09/2020.

I'm now pleased to send you to the next stop on this hop ... Nicole Watt

Here's the whole blog hop in case you need it:

Thanks so much for stopping by!
-Kelly
Supplies Used (affiliate links used, thanks so much for your support!)
BAF: Clover