Altenew - Happy Retirement

Hello!

Recently a lovely lady in my department retired and I was asked to make a card for her.  I made it quite large as the whole department needed to sign it, so I made it 5 x 7 and added an insert so there was more space to write.

I used the Peony Bouquet stamp set from Altenew, stamping with Versamark ink and embossing with Altenew Crisp Pure White embossing powder. 

I coloured the flowers and leaves with my Zig Markers, using Yellow, Bright Yellow and Orange for the flowers and Light Green for the leaves.

I made an ink blended panel using Fossilized Amber and Abandoned Coral Distress Oxides and glued that to the centre of my card base, gluing a panel of vellum over the top to give a soft appearance.

I cut one MFT Snow Drifts Cover Up Die-namics in smooth white cardstock gluing it to the back of a white cardstock frame cut with MFT Pierced Frames Die-namics. 

I used my Gansai Tambi Starry Colors watercolours to splatter some small gold dots over this and then glued it on the front of my card, covering the edges of the vellum and blended panel.

I cut another piece of white cardstock with MFT Double Stitched Rectangles STAX and stamped a retirement sentiment in Versamark ink, from Whimsy Stamps Happy Sayings stamp set and embossed this with Altenew Crisp Embossing Power in Antique Gold.

I blended a scrap of watercolour paper with distress inks in yellows and oranges and then cut out the word HAPPY with MFT Happy Greetings Die-namics layering it up with another 2 cut from white cardstock and adhering it abover my stamped sentiment. I them glued the rectangle to the centre of my card.

I fussy cut all my flowers and leaves and arranged them around my card, adhering them with foam tape for some dimension.

To finish I added some gold enamel dots I made with Pale Gold Nuvo Drops, and some Crystal Clear sequins.

I hope you enjoyed my project today, I really enjoyed making it.

Thanks for dropping by!

Altenew - Beautiful Day

Hello!

I bought a couple more stamp sets from Altenew recently and though I haven't had very much time to play with them yet I did get this fairly simple card made with the Beautiful Day stamp set.

I stamped the flowers and leaves in Versamark ink, on Strathmore Bristol Smooth paper, and heat embossed with Altenew's Crisp Embossing Powder in Pure White, masking the lower left flower.

I coloured the images with Zig Markers in Persian Green, Pale Pink, Light Grey and light Green.

Once everything was dry I die-cut the panel and stamped the sentiment with Versafine Onyx Black ink,

I die-cut a turquoise piece of lustre cardstock slightly smaller than my card base and a pale pink piece of lustre cardstock slightly smaller than that. I adhered all my layers onto my card base popping the top panel up with some craft foam.

I finished the card with a few sparkling clear sequins.and gems.

Thank you so much for dropping by xx

Altenew &My Favorite things- Celebrate

Hello!

Dashing in with a quick share for you.

I used a combination of dies from My Favorite Things, and an outline flower stamp and Gold embossing powder from Altenew to make a simple but elegant card that could be used for a birthday, wedding, engagement or anniversay...or any special day realy.

I used some MFT Cardstock in Crushed Coral to make my card base and then used the large die from Blueprints 20 to cut some vellum. I really love using layers of vellum when you want a softer effect and of course it's not as heavy as cardstock.

I took the large outline flower stamp from Altenew's Garden treasures, and stamped all over my watercolour paper with Versmark ink. I did this a few at a time, using my anti-static powder first and using the crisp embossing powder from Altenew in Antique Gold to heat emboss/

I then used my distress inks in Worn Lipstick, Abandoned Coral and Dried Marigold  to blend on some colour. I added a few drops of water and left for a few seconds before blotting with some absorbent paper., then I added a light misting of gold Glimmer Mist and left to dry. 

I cut the Celebrate word out several times in cardstock to match my base card, and for the top layer I sponged over with Versamark ink before adding more of the gold embossing powder and heating to make the beautiful gold finish. I then glued all my layers together to make my dimensional word.

I used a sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp You Matter stamp set, and embossed with more gold powder on some vellum, cutting it out with an MFT Stitched Sentiment Strip die.

I glued all my elements together, popping the main panel up on some craft foam and then added a few sequins from Little Things by Lucy.

That's my card for today, I hope you like it and thanks for visiting!

Altenew & Simon Says Stamp - Leaf Background Card

Hello!

I have a few cards to share with you today but as they are all different I've split them into different posts. I'm really trying to work my way through my draft folder and clear some of the backlog this weekend, or some cards will never see the light of day here.

So the next few posts may be short on text.

This card is made using the leaf die from Altenew's Graden Treasures set and a the You die and You Matter stamp set from Simon Says Stamp.

I used Distress Oxide inks in Peacock Feathers, Cracked Pistachio and Twisted Citron for blending and stamping.

I also used Blueprints 31 from My Favorite Things, Altenew Gold embossing powder, Gansai Tambai Starry Colours watercolour paint and a few gold and mint sequins from Little Things by Lucy.

I highlighted the leaves with a Sakura Gold Star Gelly Roll pen.

Thanks for dropping by!

Altenew - All My Love

Hello!

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend, wherever you may be.

For today's post I'm using the Altenew Garden Treasures stamp set again, but this time I changed things up a bit.

No masking this time, instead, I stamped out lots of flowers individually with Versafine Onyx Black ink, and coloured them with my Zig Markers.

I don't have the matching dies for this set so I fussy cut them all out by hand....yup...by hand.

It took a bit of time but it was quite relaxing and very worth it in the end.

I set all my flowers aside and started to work on my panel. I used some Strathmore Bristol Smooth paper and blended Distress Oxide Inks in Cracked Pistachio and Broken China, with a blending tool. Then I took the Moroccan Lattice Stencil from MFT Stamps and blended through a little Wilted Violet Distress Oxide ink in the centre part of my panel.

I sprinkled a few water droplets and spayed some gold glimmer mist and blotted and dried. Then I took some gold watercolour paint and splattered on some drops using a paintbrush. 

Once completely dried I cut it out with a large rectangle die from MFT Stamps Blueprints 20 and added it to a white top folding A2 card base.

 For the frame I took 2 oval dies and taped them inside one another on a piece of white cardstock and  flicked on some more gold watercolour paint, then cut a narrow strip of foam tape to pop it up on my card. 

I then took a piece of Boysenberry Lustre cardstock, cut it out with a banner die from the same Blueprints 20 die-namics, and gold embossed a sentiment from MFT Stamps' 

You Give Me Butterflies sentiment set. 

I arranged all my flowers where I wanted them around the frame and popped some of them up on foam tape. I added the banner sentiment with a little foam tape and finally I added a few sequins from different selections, to match the colours of the card.

I really love the way this card turned out and hope that you do too.

Thanks so much for dropping by!

Altenew - Garden Treasures

Hello!

Well I can't say that I'm sorry to be nearing the end of this week, the weather in the UK has been simply horrid, very wet and grey and even a tad cold! Considering it's July tomorrow that's very poor showing. I expect the sun to pull his socks up and work harder next week, or I'll be having a few sharp words with him.

Anyway, this is a first for me, I've dipped my toe into the waters that are Altenew Stamps. I don't really colour flowers much at all normally, but I've seen so many gorgeous work with these beautiful stamps lately, that I just had to try.

So I purchased a lovely stamp set called Garden Treasuers, that seemed fairly versatile and set to work making a couple of cards. This was actually the 2nd card I made, but I will share the other with you at a later date.

This is what I made, I was pretty happy in all with the result.

First of all I took some Strathmore Bristol Smooth paper and prepped it with my anti-static tool. Then I stamped the larger flower in Versamark ink, and heat embossed it with Altnew Crisp Embossing Powder in Antique Gold. Then I re-prepped and stamped again after masking off my first image with a mask made from a post it note, I heat embossed again, following with the smaller flowers and the leaf. You do have to be a bit careful as the slight tackiness from the post it can get left on the paper and attract the embossing powder if you're not careful. I used my Misti to stamp to make the positioning easier.

Once all my stamping and embossing was complete I coloured the image with my Zig markers.

Once I was happy with the result I set aside to dry while I prepared my background.

I took some Tim Holtz watercolour paper and blended a mix of Worn Lipstick, Abandoned Coral and Dried Marigold, concentrating the deeper pinker colour at the bottom and the lighter orangey peach colour towards the top, getting a nice ombre effect.

Then I sprinkled and flicked some droplets of water, let stand for a few seconds and blotted off with a paper towel. Finally I flicked some gold paint on it randomly and then spayed lightly with a gold Glimmer Mist. This gives the card a lovely lustre which sadly doesn't show up to well on camera. I dried with my heat tool and then left it to completely dry while I prepared the rest of my card.

I took some smooth white cardstock and cut it to 11" x 4.25" scored at 5.5" and folded in half to make my top folding card base/

I fussy cut my stamped and coloured image, this is quite easy when you emboss.

I took my fully dried background and cut it to size with a Double Stitched Rectangle die from MFT Stamps, then prepped it with my anti static tool, and stamped the Thank You sentiment from MFT Stamps'You Give Me Butterflies stamp set and heat embossed with the same gold embossing powder.

I adhered this to my card base with some craft foam in between, then popped my flowers on with some foam tape to give them a little dimension.

Finally I added a few sequins from Lucy's Little Things, Tropical Paradise shaker selection.

I do hope you like my card for today, it's a bit different from my normal type, but I really like it .

 I'm off for a meal and a few glasses of something nice after work tonight with my lovely friend Jane, so I can put the weather firmly behind me.......or at least not care very much about it lol! 

Thanks so much for dropping by!