Altenew Love and Friendship Blog Hop

Hello and welcome! I am so excited to be hopping along with Altenew for their February 2021 Release! They have so many beautiful new products! I was very inspired by this Collection and I think you will be too.

I would love to show you three projects...so keep scrolling. There are also loads of prizes so check the details below and start hopping!

Altenew Tall Foliage Stamp, Die and Coloring Stencil

The first card is a valentine that I made for my husband using The Tall Foliage Bundle. I positioned the two die cuts so that to me, they looked like they were dancing. I ink blended a slimline panel using Altenew's Large Ink Blending Tool. While that panel was drying, I stamped and colored the two elements using the coordinating coloring stencil and Small Ink Blending Tool. I love the Lagoon leaves (The Rainbow Mini Cube Set) against the green background. The "So Glad I Found You" sentiment is included in this stamp set.

TIP: The first thing I did was make a stamp guide template. I die cut each element out of sturdy cardstock and then used this as a template to layout my stamp so that everything lined up well. The stamp is tall and this method worked well for me. You only have to make the template once and then I just store it with my bundle.

The The Tall Foliage bundle is gorgeous and includes the stamps along with loads of sentiments, the coordinating dies, the coloring stencil and I used all three on my two cards. Altenew also included a multipanel inspiration guide that was very helpful. These two stamps are large...the tall foliage is 7 3/4" tall and the flower is 6 3/4" and adds a lot of impact to your projects.

For my second card, I wanted a dramatic background to contrast with the white and green folliage, so I used the "direct to paper" inking method. I selected 8 different colors of ink pads in shades from turqouise to dark blue. I rubbed each color in sections of the cardstock and I kept the middle softer and the edges darker. At first, the background looked like a terrible mess but as you add layers it turns into a bold and complex panel.

I used the coloring stencil, Small Ink Blending Tool and Green Valley Mini Ink Cube Set (Shadow Creek) to shade parts of the leaves. The sentiment is from the Inked Lotus Bundle.

I wanted to make a coordinating background for my roses and found the The Organic Linen 3D Embossing Folder from this release was perfect! The end result was a subtle textured background with a hint of color in the valleys of the panel.

Organic Linen 3D Embossing Folder

I dabbed a generous amount of pink pigment ink on my work surface and then ran a brayer across the ink. I then ran the brayer across the embossing folder, placed a sheet of cardstock in and then closed. I found that I liked the result best when I inked the embossing folder side with the sticker. Either, side works, but I liked that pattern the best. The sandwich I used was one embossing plate + embossing folder + magnetic shim + plastic shim. Note, I only used ONE embossing plate, not two. This sandwich was recommended by Jennifer McGuire in a video I watched last year. I did make some other panels using dye ink that I will use in a future blog post.

The roses are from The Bellaroma Hybrid Tea Rose BUILD A FLOWER that was released last week. I wanted to make a valentine for my mom, so I chose pink for the blooms and vivid green for leaves. I used The Green Valley Mini Ink Cube Set. and used the middle two colors, Green Fields and Shadow Creek. I added a small piece of Painted Grid Washi Tape to the top of my sentiment for a little added interest.

Here is a Link to Altenew's Love and Friendship Blog Hop.

Click HERE to see the entire Love and Friendship Collection.

GIVEAWAY:

$300 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 10 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 02/08/2021 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 12 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 02/11/2021.

Altenew is also running a free gift promotion: