Altenew Paint-A-Flower: Clematis & Artist Alcohol Markers Release Blog Hop + Giveaway

 

Hi Friends! I'm happy to join in on the release of  two new sets of alcohol markers from Altenew, along with the new Clematis stamp set.

You may have come from Therese Calvird, but if not feel free to start at the beginning with the Altenew Card Blog.

 

On my own I never would have paired this beautiful aqua blue Sweet Dreems with a blue/purple Enchanted Garden and a Delectable Delights mustard, but oh my gosh do these colors look amazing together in the Water Garden Artist Markers, Set G! I chose to work with just the aqua and mustard color families for this card.

 

One of my favorite images to color is the Altenew Statement Flowers Stamp Set, there's just something about the open spaces of its petals and the way it fills an A2 card that really speaks to me. The large petals give you a great opportunity to show off your coloring medium, like these markers.

I used the "flick" method to color these, where you start from the center of the flower and flick the color out towards the end of the petals. It's a very loose style and always fun to see how it's going to turn out. The darker the color, the shorter the stroke/flick.

The beauty of using the mustard tones for the leaves is that they are good at fading into the background so the aqua has more of a chance to shine. I'm always looking for good foliage color alternatives than your typical green and I've definitely added this to my list, along with warm gray.

One last tip: if you're looking for something quick to jazz up your cards when you can't figure out how to finish your card, I'd highly recommend the thin Painted Grid Washi Tape. It's often just the right something. And inexpensive to add to your cart at just $2.50. Bonus ... if you don't like it you can just remove it right away!

 

Giveaway Prizes

$200 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 2 lucky winners and a $20 gift certificate to 5 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 02/28/2021 for a chance to win. 

Altenew will draw 7 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 03/02/2021.

 

It is now my pleasure to send you to the blog of Nathalie DeSousa, where she has something wonderful to share with you!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
-Kelly

 

Supplies Used (affiliate links, thanks for your support!)

Statement Flowers Stamp Set

 

Painted Grid Washi Tape

Sunshine Valley Artist Markers, Set F

Water Garden Artist Markers, Set G

 

 

Make a Wobbler for Your Insects - Altenew's Mini Delight: Bee Kind Stamp & Die Set

 

Hi Friends! I love making wobblers for my cards because they are 1) cheap, 2) easy, 3) quick, 4) flat to mail and 5) fun to watch. Take a look:

Isn't he cute? In the time it takes for you to wrap a thin wire around a pencil, you have your very own wobbler!

The new Mini Delight: Bee Kind stamp and die set from Altenew is perfect for buzzing (wobbling) around all of their floral stamps.

To enhance the bee a little, I removed his paper wings and replaced them with a set of white-embossed vellum wings. Fun! And to take it a step further, I made two layers of wings so it looks like they are flapping up and down. 

If you'd like to see more projects using this set I'd encourage you to buzz on over and check out the Instagram hop going on now!

Thanks for stopping by today!

- Kelly

 

Products Used (affiliate links, thanks so much for your support!)

 

Bee Kind

 

Pinkfresh Studio February 2021 Stamp, Stencil and Die Release Blog Hop

Hello Friends! Boy am I in love with these new coloring stencils for how easily they allow you to color in stamped images, and this Pinkfresh Studio release is chock full of them! I picked three different layering stencils to work with, and am anxious to share them with you.

You may have come from the blog of Keia Shipp-Smith, but if not feel free to start at the beginning with the Pinkfresh Studio Blog.

Sure, you can absolutely color in these stamped images with watercolors, alcohol ink, colored pencils, but there's something so satisfying about using these sets of stencils that let you blend all the color immediately onto the card.

This beauty is the Friendship Blooms Stamp, designed by my friend Alex Syberia, and has to be the most frilly, detailed stamped image I own. It's amazing!! And better yet, the coloring stencils have all the frills figured out for you. All you do is blend!

Coloring an image like this with watercolors would certainly be fun, but let's be honest, the immediate gratification of blending through a stencil is irresistible. And you get perfect results every time!

In addition to these amazing blooms (there are three of them, and five different leaves), this set comes with a host of useful sentiments. I've used one of them here, and love how it's different than anything I already own, without being so "odd" that I'd struggle to use it. A fine line for sure!

The floral image on this card is actually completely made with the Rustic Floral Wreath Stencils (no stamp or coordinating dies) and qualifies it as a one-layer card (as long as you don't count the panel).

I was tickled to see how well another one of Alex's sentiments from the Friendship Blooms set fits in the center of the wreath. And how the word "bloom" is directly above all those fresh yellow blooms! A simple card with a lot of impact.

Finally, this card features a stunning floral swag from Infinite Blooms designed by another talented friend, Emily Midgett! I was so relieved to see coloring stencils for this intricut arrangement, and was impressed with all the tiny details that are captured.

After some basic ink blending through the stencils, I went in with some colored pencils to quickly add more shadows to the flowers and leaves.

The two different sentiments are both from a new set called Happy Birthday Sentiments. If you thought you have enough birthday sentiments already, I'd encourage you to take a second look. The secondary sentiments in this set are fantastic, and really are different than what I already have in my collection. I'll be reaching for this one often!

GIVEAWAYS:

-The ENTIRE RELEASE will be given away on the Pinkfresh blog, IG feed & YouTube channel!!

-In addition, a winner will be selected to win a $25 gift certificate from each stop on this blog hop, from the comments left at the end of each post. The winners will be posted on February 15 , 2021 on the GIVEAWAY PAGE. You must check that page & claim your prize within 2 weeks. Good luck!

SHOPPING PROMO:

We are offering free US shipping on all orders $50+ from February 8th to February 14th. 

 

 FREE DIE PROMO: 

We will have a free die with $50 purchase for this release (no code needed) from February 8th to February 14th (or while supplies last)!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Well, I am pleased to say you've reached the end of this star-studded blog hop! I'm curious after seeing all of the projects what your favorite one was? What about your must-have product? Hope you found some great inspiration today!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
- Kelly

 

Products Used (Affiliate links, thanks so much for your support of my blog!) 

 

Rustic Floral Wreath Stencils

Rustic Floral Wreath Die

Infinite Blooms Stencils

Infinite Blooms Stamp

Infinite Blooms Die

Happy Birthday Sentiments

Friendship Blooms Layering Stencil

Friendship Blooms Stamp

Friendship Blooms Die

 

Altenew Craft-A-Flower: Cosmos Layering Die Set Release Blog Hop + Giveaway

Hello Friends!  I remember the first time I saw Cosmos for sale at our local Home Depot, it was love at first sight. I loved the deep fuchsia color of the petals, and how big they were. I bought a few, wondering if I was just wasting my money and that they would die quickly (like the gerbera daisies I can never keep alive for long.) Nope! Not only did they live all summer, they took off and completely hid my ugly air conditioning unit on the side of the house!

I was really excited when I saw Altenew was offering a Craft-a-Flower Cosmos set and couldn't wait to try it out!

You may have come from the blog of Erum Tasneem, but if not feel free to start over at the Altenew Card Blog

 

I'm happy to report that these die layering cosmos flowers did not disappoint. I love all the strips of color in these detailed layers. I also appreciated the layering tip on the back of the package to use four colors of cardstock for the three layers. On one flower you'd start with the lightest color (the flower on the right behind the sentiment) and on the other flower you'd start with the second to lightest cardstock, and end with the darkest cardstock (the taller flower on the left).

This gives you one darker flower, and one lighter flower. A subtle difference, but I think it makes the pair a little more interesting when they are together.

The flower stems are woven into the recently-released Grid Cover Die. This die is a real workhorse, as there are so many different ways you can use it. Here I've just used a small section to provide somewhere to ground the flowers. It's also fun to pop out a few random squares to add to the design.

 

The sentiments are also from the past January release, Simple Greetings die set and Versatile Vases 2, which in addition to having awesome vases, comes with about a dozen great scripted sentiments.

Giveaway Prizes

$200 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 1 lucky winner and a $15 gift certificate to 10 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post by 02/12/2021 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 11 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 02/15/2021.

I am now pleased to send you to the blog of Anna Mahtani.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
- Kelly

Supplies used (affiliate links used, thanks so much for your support!):

 

CAF: Cosmos Layering Set

Simple Greetings Die Set

Versatile Vases 2 Stamp and Die Bundle

Grid Cover Die

 

 

Waffle Flower Crafts February Release Hop - FIVE Different Projects, Including an Element Made with Wood!

 
Hi Friends!  Welcome to Waffle Flower’s February 2021 Release day! I’m THRILLED to be blog hopping with the folks from Waffle Flower, and can't wait to share five different projects I made with several of the new stamp and die sets from this release!

You may have come from the blog of Dana Kirby, but if not feel free to start at the beginning with the Waffle Flower blog. 

 
Playing with all the fresh Spring images and dies sure made the snow storms sweeping through the midwest this week a lot less blustery! What fun these sets are ... let's take a look !

The Hopeful Girl Stamp Set is simply adorable featuring a prayerful girl, and a bunny (used for an Easter card later in this post). It's the perfect large focal image to use when you want to send healing thoughts to someone special. 

There is also a cluster of flowers in this set that I've used many different ways on all but one of my cards today. On this card, I used the flowers to create a floral sweatshirt for our prayerful girl. I also cut a portion of the floral spray off to tuck behind the girl to balance the card design out. It's perfect for when you need to add a little something to an almost-finished card.

The background of this card is from the Stitchable Pinking Oval Die Set. What fabulous texture, and you can either leave all the holes intact, remove them all, or leave a portion of them like I've done here. The wonderfully modern sentiment is from  Caring Hands Sentiments Stamp Set, and for the second line of the sentiment, I used a pink alcohol marker over the white embossing to change the color!

This card features a pair of hands from Caring Hands Stamp Set, which is a cool set for a variety of different hand gestures. I added a heart from Caring Hands Sentiments Stamp Set in the middle of the hands to convey the love that I'm sending.

Super love the font and spacing of the sentiment on this one. To fill in the space at the bottom of the card I added the florals from the Hopeful Girl Stamp Set and colored them in a little more modern style with the two-toned leaves. 

I was really excited to try out the embroidery hoop dies! The Embroidery Hoops Die Set work well with ... WOOD! Yep, I ran some balsa wood thru with the dies and it came out perfectly, just like an actual embroidery hoop!

 

 

 

And just like the real embroidery hoop, the screw is gold metal!

 

For the contents of the hoop, I cut a piece of lace (from a giant table cloth I found at a garage sale years ago for $1!) to give the feeling of stitching, without actually doing the stitching.

 

 

This card also features the new alpha dies! The Retro Outline Alpha Die Set is a classic font that comes with an outline layer. This layer helps differentiate the letters if you have to layer them together like I have here. 

Here's a second card featuring a wooden embroidery hoop, but this is a more modern and streamlined card than the lacey concoction we just saw.

Instead of a piece of lace, I die cut a piece of canvas fabric to go inside the hoop. In addition to including a new texture, I love how the thick, bold, red-stamped letters highlight the existing stitching in the fabric. Again, like the lace in the prior card, this gives the effect of stitching without actually stitching.

Finally, I was happy to use the bunny from the Hopeful Girl Stamp Set to make an Easter card!



So surprised to find that the coordinating die cuts out the bunnie's hands, so now he can hold things, like the single flower bloom! How sweet : )

The alpha dies allowed me to make my own sentiment, Hoppy Easter. For these alphas, I didn't use the outline layer like in the previous card so you can see the difference. With more layers going on with this card I like this simpler version.

 

The many layers of the Lacey Ovals Die Set are perfect for this Easter egg-shaped card.

Whew, that was a lot of fun, thanks for checking all my cards out! What was your favorite card? Anything you'd like to try?

Giveaways:

For today’s hop, Waffle Flower is giving away a $25 gift certificate to THREE lucky winners. You can leave a comment on this blog and along the hop by 11:59pm EDT on Monday February 8th, 2021 for chances to win. Winners will be chosen at random from the comments left on any of the posts in this blog hop and will be announced on the Waffle Flower Blog on 2/10/2021.

There are more giveaways to enter on our Instagram! Follow us at @waffleflowercrafts so you don’t miss out! 

Specials:

From now till February 7th, 2021, all orders placed at waffleflower.com will receive a mysterious gift (No code required!).

For those of you who are new to Waffle Flower, they have a Last Chance section on their website that lists many goodies for 25% off until they are gone! This would be a great place to start your collection! 

 

I am now pleased to send you to TaeEun, who has amazing things to share with you!

 

Thanks for stopping by!
-Kelly

 Supplies used (affiliate links, thanks so much for your support!):

Caring Hands Sentiments Stamp Set

Caring Hands Stamp Set

A2 Lacey Layers Die Set

Stitchable Pinking Oval Die Set

Hopeful Girl Stamp Set

Lacey Ovals Die Set

Embroidery Hoops Die Set

Retro Outline Alpha Die Set