Notable Nest: April 2024

Hello and welcome to the Colorado Craft Company new release blog hop! This release features the artistry of Kris Lauren, and several of her adorable critters.

What a cute sentiment! And scene to support it. In fact, this Good Company Stamp Set comes with two different choices of company to ride in your basket - this little bunny, or a fox. Either a worthy companion for Mr. Bear. There are also a few flowers to fancy things up.

Because the lines of the bicycle are so narrow for coloring, I didn't want to get out my watercolors, so I turned to my colored pencils. It's been a hot minute since I've played with these, and quite enjoyed it. Making fur for Mr. Bear was enjoyable, as well as the grass.

To finish this one off I sponged some yellow for a nice sunny day and blended a bit of sky on top of the card.

This little guy is just hands down adorable!! He looks so pleased with himself. He's from the Oceans to Fly set and is one of two different airplane pilots.

The sentiment is so cute for my little nieces and nephews! And I like that it can be for many different occasions.

Since the main image is small, I was thinking about what kind of background to make for the rest of the card. Then it occurred to me to just use the large airplane stamp!

The last card features the other airline pilot, who's quite excited to spot his adventure ahead!

I still had the colored pencils out from the bear riding a bicycle card so I put them to use on this card as well. It was fun to mix in a few different colors on the plane.

The banner sentiment is from a smaller set called Greetings Banner. After cutting the banner out and attaching it, I bent it up so it folds inward and would fit into an A2-sized envelope.

Originally I had just cut out several white clouds and layered them on the bottom of the card (see top photo). After photographing the card, I thought it was too washed out and didn't show well enough, and regretted not inking the edges before adhering them to the card base. Well, I decided to try inking the edges without removing the clouds from the card by slipping a piece of paper underneath the edges and sponging with the fine blending brushes which I love. I was happy that it worked!

I added another sentiment embossed in gold, and tucked it behind the cloud puffs.

Prizes!
We're doing two different giveaways! Enter as many times as you'd like until Apr 30th. Winners announced on May 2nd. Good luck!!

Giveaway 1: All designers will be giving away a stamp set from this release to a lucky winner that will be drawn from all the comments left on our blogs or instagram.
Giveaway 2:
We'll be giving away the complete release to one randomly chosen winner that has placed an order using your favorite designer's affiliate link (for example, by clicking on the links on the images in this blog post below).
Now it's time to send you to the blog of Kelly Taylor who will astound you with something amazing (as always)!
Here's a complete list of stops on this hop if you need it:

BLOGS:

Kelly Taylor
Kassi Hulet

Nancy Sheads
Sandy Allnock

IG:

Thanks for stopping by!

Kelly

Good Company

Oceans to Fly

Greetings Banner

Hello and welcome to the April Altenew release hop, which also coincides with their TENTH anniversary! I wonder how many stamp sets that would be over the last decade?! Well, no surprise, Altenew has celebrated big this month and has quite an unbelievable release - here's a link to the April Full Release

Let's get started as I have A TON of cards to share

The Altenew 10th Anniversary is celebrated with a GIGANTIC 8x11 Bouquet of Poppies Set that has stamps, dies, stencils. The poppies are so large I had to make a 8.5" tall slimline card to feature them lol! Note that this set also comes with butterflies to rest on your sentiment!!

There are also two sentiments from two different sets featured here: One Go Words and Banners, and Celebration Sentiments. Both sets have several different sentiments so it's nice to make them all at one time and then you have easy leftovers for future projects.

Since the image is so large, I thought it might make a good 2-for-1 card, and I was right! I colored another full image on a 5.5x11 cardstock ...

And after cutting it in half ended up with two great cards!

Both of these cards feature large gold die-cut sentiments from Timeless Sentiments 2, as well as a sentiment from the giant Bouquet of Poppies Set.

And a butterfly : ) It's such a good way to add another color to your card, as well as making it more than another "flower card."

The bottom half of the large poppy image features three different sentiments - the "Cheers!" Better Press Celebration Sentiments (which I turned into Gold Hot Foil sentiments), a "thank you for all you do" from the Bouquet of Poppies Set, and "sending smiles" from Timeless Sentiments 2.

I like to pop up the butterfly by bending its wings up - cheapest and easiest way to add dimension to your card!

For only two colorings of the Bouquet of Poppies Set, what a big impact!

Using the leftover butterflies from the Bouquet of Poppies card, I added two of them to another sentiment from Timeless Sentiments 2 which totally fills the card.

The background is a pressing with yellow ink from the Baroque Elegance Press Plate. Nothing fancy in terms of ink or paper, but WOW what a material-like texture!

Next up are three cards made with the Anemone Blue Poppy die. As you can see, I got a bit carried away with this one too!

There are only two main flower dies to make each flower, and two center dies, so not a lot of effort. But wow, great impact!

The lines on each petal automatically made by the die sure do bring a lot of depth to the flowers. For more dimension, I bent up the petals and flower centers.

This is one of my favorites due to the lush plum background with the charcoal ink pressed in from the Baroque Elegance Press Plate.

The peach florals pop, as well as the straight lines on the anemones (vs the baroque floral pattern on the card base)

I had two flowers left over, so they became a third card from this set!

Check out the gems on the Sparkled Frames Die! Those are the Red Jasper Gems. They fit exactly into little circle impressions left from the die so there is no guessing in placement around the frame.

The smaller gold foil sentiment is from One Go Words and Banners and the larder "celebration" is from Timeless Sentiments 2.

A nice little set of cards from this Anemone Blue Poppy set, and you can see how it looks different on a white vs. dark background.

Finally, I got ridiculously carried away with the fantastically and realistically detailed birds from the Rustic Charm stamp/die/stencil/embossing folder set.

Before getting into the cards, can we take a moment to appreciate all the Rustic Charm birds? These are all made with the SAME stamp and stencil!! The fanciful green and pink finch on the top right uses all the different stencil pieces and has all different colors, whereas the yellow-green and red finch on the top left just used the different head stencils, and I kept most of the breast/wings/tail the same color.

On the other hand, the brown and orange robin (left-most bird) has no variation on the head, but the breast/wings/tail are all different.

It was so fun looking up birds like on this stylized poster I found via google search and trying to replicate them (there's a blue jay in the mix as well!) Also fun just to color the birds randomly.

Here's a good reference for all the different color combinations I tried. I get happy just looking at this photo : )

My favorite combinations are these sweet red birds. The left is a male Bull Finch, and the right honestly is made up. But I love the idea of these two different-but-similar birds choosing to hang out with each other on the telephone lines, with all the other outlines of birds in the background. They are indeed best besties!

The way I attached them grabbing onto the gold thread makes them stand out a bit from the card - bonus! Just really love ALL the different colors and tones that bring these birds to life, and it was all so easy with the one-piece stencil!

The bottom is a strip from the Petal Harmony Hot Foil Plate with the new Gold Hot Foil.

Yet another gold foil sentiment from Timeless Sentiments 2.

This card uses the fence stencil and embossing folder that comes with this Rustic Charm set as the background on the card base.

I cut in half the solid floral cluster that also comes with the Rustic Charm set, and added it behind the top and bottom of the oval to give more separation from the lines of the fence. The sentiment is another one from One Go Words and Banners.

For this card I was going for a vintage bird book vibe with a literal book page, and faded colors on the leaves/berries.

I bent the leaves up for dimension, and used a simple sentiment that came with the Rustic Charm set. Also, notice I used the Sparkled Frames Die, only without any of the gems. You can see the circle impressions, but it looks part of the design. Versitile!

This card is simple with a similar formula - patterned background, Sparkled Frame s Die, Timeless Sentiments 2, and a Rustic Charm bird (this time peeking out from behind the frame).

I also cut up a few pieces of the main branch and stuck those behind the frame, in the same colors as the bird to coordinate. This helps make the blush sentiment stand out.

Finally, same exact formula (patterned background, oval die, bird) but a different look. This might be my favorite coloring for the bird.

Glossy accents on the berries, and the pattern on the oval is the Petal Harmony Hot Foil Plate. I offset the oval Sparkled Frames Die (which has the Red Jasper Gems added on top) a bit with another frame cut from book paper.

The background pattern is actually vellum pressed with white ink from the Baroque Elegance Press Plate. Super elegant!

So much to share today - love that you made it all the way through!! Do you have a favorite? Or a favorite bird coloring?

Giveaway Prizes

$300 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $100 gift certificate to 1 lucky winner and a $50 gift certificate to 4 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 04/17/2024 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 5 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 04/19/2024.