Altenew Educators "Favorite Old/New Altenew Stamp" Blog Hop and Linky Party + Giveaway

   

Hello friends!  I am so pleased to be participating in my first Altenew Educator Blog Hop!  I went through the certification program last year and loved every minute!  For this post, I wanted to focus on two favorite stamp sets that I purchased while I was a student in the program, Doodle Blooms and Inked Lotus. 

Using Stencils on Acrylic Gel Press Mixed Media Cards

I spent a day making 5 x 7" acrylic gel press backgrounds in a variety of colors and using lots of Altenew stencils and stamps.  I love color and texture and wanted this "daisy" card to be bold and vibrant so I started with this gorgeous red panel.  With a brayer, I mixed pink, orange and brilliant red and applied to a plate that had some leftover yellow and green already on the press.  After the panel dried, I added  a layer using the Flowing Drops Stencil and then an additional layer of gold with the Narrow Brick Stencil.  You can see the lovely gold shimmer in the second photo.  

Die Cutting Floral Images from Acrylic Gel Press Monoprints

Using the Doodle Blooms Bundle, I stamped and die-cut a bunch of blooms from some of the other hand-crafted acrylic panels.  I think this is such a happy and cheerful stamp set.  I laid the die-cut flowers on the red panel and selected the blooms I liked best on the background and adhered with foam tape.  The stems are from the Craft-A-Flower Cosmos Kit.   The flower centers are enamel dots from the  Glacier Caves and New Day collections.  I finished off by adding a sentiment with a strip of my favorite Painted Grid Washi Tape.

The background from this next card is the top portion of the panel I used on the daisy card above. I die cut it with the largest Rounded Rectangle and then backed with foam for dimension.  The Inked Lotus was heat embossed and die cut from a coordinating monoprint panel for a tone-on-tone look and was adhered with foam tape.  The sentiment was die-cut from black cardstock using the Essential Sentiments Set.  

I made a second similar card, but this time the Inked Lotus  was die cut from a red/orange acrylic panel where I brayered a lot of turqouise ink over the Narrow Brick Stencil.  This is my favorite stencil to use on monoprints.  The background panel was brayered with Yellow, Olive and Turquoise.  After the paint dried, layers were added with the   Leaves and Berries Stencil (blue), Mega Bloom Stencil and finally the Narrow Brick Stencil was lightly inked in gold over the background panel.  I love the dimension you get by adding layer upon layer with stencils and stamps.    

For my last card, I changed things up and used softer colors:  Sky Blue, Blue Violent, Light Purple and Brilliant Purple over a press that had some leftover Olive and Turquoise.  I then brayered over the Mega Bloom Stencil with a light coat of gold.  You can see the shimmer better in the second photo.  I again used the  Doodle Blooms Stamp and Die Bundle to stamp and cut my elements from a variety of  gel press prints.  I finished with  Glacier Caves Enamel Dots for the centers.

Here is a photo of two of the backgrounds prior to card assembly.  You can really see how lovely the stenciled accents look on the panels.  

As I mentioned, I loved using these two stamps for my AECP class work.  Here are two homework assignments I submitted using the sets:

Doodle Blooms Card

Inked Lotus Card

Prizes:

Altenew is giving away a $20 gift certificate to 5 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog (https://wp.me/p6Dps1-deu) by 4/4/2021 for a chance to win. 

 

We’ll also draw a winner to receive a $15 Altenew 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 4/6/2021.

 

We Want to See Your Creations Too!

What’s a hop without YOU?! We have included an Inlinkz at the Altenew blog for you to enter your gorgeous Altenew “Old/New Favorite Altenew Stamp” creations. We will pick 2 of our favorite handmade creations from those who joined the linky party and they will each receive a $15 Altenew gift certificate!

If you arrived from NatashaDavies you are right on track!  

Altenew Card Blog

Bridget Casey

Colleen Balija 

Teresa Litchfield

Katrina Howe

Rosie Neustaedter

Terri Marie Koszler

Tenia Nelson

Pam Boedeker

Nandini Karmarkar

Amy Hill

Irina Fonina

Natasha Davies

Karen Brown             You Are Here!

Helen Kalb

Patty Mello

Roteja Galvan

Eva Bussom

Fiona Duff

Jaycee Gaspar

Vicki Finger

Nenette S. Madero

Teri Wilson

Rachael Shedeed

Neha Aggarwal

Kari VanNoy

Teri Stokes

Amber Rain Davis

Virginia Lu

Sandra Woodson

There is plenty more loveliness, so keep hopping!   Be sure to head to Helen's  fun post next!

I would love to hear which card you liked best.  Thanks for stopping by!

Karen

Mixed Media ATC Card

 Hello!  Last year, a cardmaking friend gave me a 1968 dictionary that was part of a classroom set that was no longer used.  I thought it was time to use a page or two in my cardmaking.  I've also been fascinated by some of the ATC's (artist trading cards) that I've been seeing on Instagram so that was the inspiration for this card.  

Mixed Media Greeting Card

Using the dictionary pages, I stamped and die cut the flowers using the  Doodle Blooms Bundle.  I then used watercolor pencils and a damp watercolor brush to shade and color the diecuts.

I wanted a rough, colorful background, so I applied pink, orange and red acrylic ink to mixed media paper with a brayer.  After the paint dried, I used the brayer to apply aqua ink over the Narrow Bricks Stencil.  I let this dry and then used the accent leaves from the Tea Time set and the greenery from the Billowing Blossoms stamp to randomly stamp on the background.  For the ATC look, I used the Rounded Rectangles to die-cut my background panel.  The sentiment is from The Birthday Greetings Set.  With black ink, I inked the edges of the background and the sentiment strips and then applied  Tea Party Enamel Dots for the center of the flowers.  

Gelli Plate Monoprint Card

For this second card, I used gel press printing and acrylic paints (violet, tourquoise, yellow, olive and magenta) to make this striking background.  I used the  Flowing Drops Stencil on my second layer.   I then used Deep Iris Dye Ink to stamp a variety of small images on the background.  I was going for a grungier look on this card.  I love using LOTS of inks, stamps and stencils for a complex mixed media card.

Next, I used the Smile More Bundle to stamp and die cut the daisies.  I again watercolored with watercolor pencils.  

This was a very fun card to make!

Thank you for stopping by!

Karen

WWC291 - Fifth Week Anything Goes Challenge

Summer technically just ended but I have one more card with the summery colors I love.  I had a scrap of striped background left from a card I made a few weeks ago that was too pretty to throw away so I made it into a card for Watercooler Wednesday's Anything Goes Challenge.  I think bright and happy always works for birthdays.  The background uses the same colors as the striped panel.

Here is a link if you would like to see the original card I made with the watercolor panel.

I am also playing along at:

Make My Monday: Use Your Scraps

Supplies Used:

Altenew Watercolor Stripes Stencil

Altenew Doodle Blooms stamp and die bundle

Jillibean Soup Enjoy sentiment

Distress Inks

UPDATE:  I was so pleased to see my card recognized as a Top Pick at Make My Monday Use Your Scraps!

Thanks for stopping by!

Karen

Finding and Incorporating Inspiration Into Your Project

Hello, hello and welcome!  Today I am blogging about a fascinating class I took at Altenew Academy called Mission Inspiration. Nicole Watt was our instructor and instead of focusing on technique, this class was all about finding inspiration for our creations.  

For this post I wanted to use a combination of color and layout inspiration for my cards.  I envisioned a trio layout with color selection coming from Pinterest.  Nicole had great ideas for searching for "color combos" and I found this quite fun! I also decided to work on staging and styling my photographs and I am pleased with the result.

I loved the graphic below and used the red, orange, citronella green and teal as the color inspiration for my card. 

I hand inked the background because I thought the result was more vibrant than the colored card stock I tried first. The center of the flower is a fun enamel dot.

The second card is very similar but I used three flowers from the same stamp set and a different color inspiration graphic.

Here is the inspiration swatch for my second card.

Again, I ink blended the background and then colored the blooms in melon and pink.  The centers are enamel dots which adds a fun detail to the card.

Here are the cards together and I think they are a bright and happy duo.  Inspiration is everywhere and I will be drawing on these six classes as I create in the future.

Altenew Products Used: Link Here

Altenew Doodle Blooms

Altenew Pinstripe (sentiment)

Altenew New Day Enamel Dots

Altenew Jet Black Crisp Die Ink

Altenew Envelope Variety Pack

I am also playing along with:

As You Like It "Bright or Pastel"  I almost always go with bright on my cards because I love bold colors.  :-)

Thank you for stopping by!

Karen