One Stamp, Three Projects: Altenew Evergreen Beauty

 A week or so ago I was lucky enough to receive a gorgeous stamp set from Altenew: Evergreen Beauty. It’s a beautiful floral image with a few lovely sentiments—and the sweetest bonus for me was a little “created by” stamp with my name on it.

Around the same time, over in the Altenew Fan Group on Facebook, Nicki Baxley was running a “One Stamp, Three Cards” challenge. I didn’t quite get all three projects finished in time—but I did make two cards and a tag.

 I stamped the main floral image three times—once on white cardstock (then cut it with my ScanNCut), once on patterned paper (also cut with the ScanNCut), and then directly onto a white panel (stamping it a couple of times to build the arrangement).

Project 1: The Tag

For the tag, I used the floral image stamped onto patterned paper and coloured it with sparkle pens. When I cut it, I didn’t include a white border—and the ScanNCut couldn’t quite handle the finest leaf details, so I trimmed those bits away by hand.

I made the base tag with a Hero Arts Infinity Arch die, then stamped the floral image again onto the tag. Next came the fun part: paper piecing the sparkly patterned-paper flowers over the top. To finish, I added a little green sparkle around the image, a light watercolour wash over the tag, and a sentiment from Altenew’s Leaf Canopy.

Project 2: Card One

For my first card, I used the die-cut floral image stamped on white cardstock and painted it with Altenew Woodless Watercolor Pencils. To give the design a “grounding” element, I inked up the Altenew Simple Frame 3D embossing folder with Tattered Rose Distress Oxide ink and ran it through my die-cutting machine. I added extra blending with a foam domed blender and rubbed a little metallic wax over the raised frame for subtle shine.

I popped the floral piece into the corner with dimensional tape and finished it off with a sentiment from Altenew’s Classic Greetings stamp and die set.

Project 3: Card Two 

For the second card, I stamped the images directly onto the card panel. I coloured the florals with Altenew Bamboo and Dusty Rose inks using mini and micro blending tools. Then I added splatter with Distress Oxide Spritz in Fossilized Amber, followed by a spritz of sparkle spray over the whole panel for extra shimmer. The sentiment is a die cut from Altenew’s Scripty Sentiment dies.

Three quite different projects, all from one stamp set—paper piecing, watercolour pencils, and ink blending. If you’re ever stuck for ideas, try limiting yourself to one main image and see how many different looks you can get from it!

Altenew Love

 #AltenewLove  - I came back from my break away last Sunday and in my mail was the gorgeous Blooming Thanks mini stamp set - a free set from Altenew.   So excited to get this free set.

So yesterday (another HOT day) I headed into the craft room for bit of cool.  And to make a card using the stamp set.   I started by stamping the floral image a number of times and used my Scan'n'Cut to cut them out. 

I used similar colours to yesterday's card but with a much lighter hand.   I got a new Gelli Art stencil called Dot and used the Sea Shore inks from Altenew to make the background panel that was cut with Gina K Master Layout 4.  I made myself a little stencil for the flowers by stamping one and cutting out the flowers.  Used some Buttercream and Warm Sunshine with some Paper Bay ink for the centres.  I used some micro blending brushes to add some of the Volcano Lakes and Lagoon inks for the leaves.   Added a touch of a teal Jasart pencil for the leaves as well.   I cut some teal textured card with Gina L Master Layout 1 and some darker teal for the layering layer.  Added the flowers around the oval and stamped the sentiment from the Blooming Thanks stamp set in Grey Denim ink.  The card base was just under A2 size at 5.25" x 4.25"  Finished with some gold sparkle pen on the flower centres and some silver dots. 

As both the stencil and the stamp set are having their first outings... I'm entering this into the NBUS challenge.  

Today was another scorcher - so after doing the housework in the morning, hubby and I went on a lunch date - to the Bay's Club in Browns Bay for a lovely lunch - Gold Card special $20 per meal.  Your get your Gold Card when you turn 65.  The meals were lovely - Lambs Fry and Bacon for him, Creamy Mushrooms on ciabatta bread for me.   Luckily the breeze picked up a bit in the afternoon and there was a bit of relief.                                              

A few Christmas cards

 Hi there.   What a weekend!  I was set to go to the FYI (For Your Inspiration) Craft Fair with Suna.  It was being held at Lake Karapiro  - a trip of just over 2 1/4 hours from my place.   I picked up Suna and after about 1/2hr down the motorway I got a bit concerned about the noise my car was making.   So made the decision to abort the trip so we got off the motorway south and got onto the motorway north!   Luckily when Suna rang her hubby to tell him he said to take their car.   So we headed off again - finally making it to the fair at 10 to 11.  And did we have fun.  It was well organised and there were lots of stalls including our favourites like Krafter's Cart, Creatables, Imagine If, Faith Pocock Studio.  I was quite restrained.  I picked up a cool Altenew hot foil floral at 30% off and a couple of stamps from Montarga.  Plus some enamel dots, a few little bits and pieces.  

Anyway, today I have a couple of cards I created last week and on Saturday evening.    I also did some cards with a stamp I got in July and had put away and forgot about.  I'll share them later in the week. 

I had picked up a few stamps, dies and stencils at the local stationery store.  They were freebies from a magazine.  One of them was an Altenew set that was from 2021 - Bells  at $3.99

I used Altenew inks to stamp the bells and mistletoe.  The set had the matching dies for the bells.   The bows look black but are in fact silver card to match the silver pen strings.   Once I was finished I went to put the stamps away and oh no... the first layer of the bells couldn't be found anywhere.  Plus a couple of the little stars.... found one of them quickly but it took till the next day to find the big layer... about a metre away on a pad of paper that was on the floor.   Still missing one little star.    

My next card uses an embossing folder that was in one of the set I picked up for $6.99.  It had a stamp set, a matching die, a stencil and an embossing folder.  

I decided to do a bit of a letterpress look.  I swiped some Distress Ink onto the folder.  It bubbled up a bit and when I embossed it turned out very splotchy.  But I decided that I was going to just go with it.   I then added some gold Pocsa pen colouring to the stars.  The sentiment is one of the stamps I got from Montarga on Saturday.    

Had a lovely day yesterday with hubby for his birthday.   I took him to the local beach cafe - a nice walk down to Murrays Bay- for brunch, had a little sit at the beach before heading back home.  The family came round for dinner.  Our little one was super keen to get here so they arrived earlier than I expected.  Hubby had baby sat on Saturday morning and the two of them had a fun filled time - playing games, going to the Wonderland indoor playground and having chocolate ice-cream for breakfast!  Pop and Grace time went well.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Have fun crafting. 

June CCC Reveal.

Hi there.... Over at The Card Chain Challenge it's reveal day.

I have taken part in a large number of the swaps.... For June my card went to Linda in Michigan, USA

I used the beautiful stamp that I was gifted by Altenew. It is called "A Gift for You" and also has an personalised greatting.   I stamped the flowers and used some teal and green Copics to colour before fussy cutting the image.    I used the sentiments from Hello Gorgeous set also from Altenew.  I used the Copic marker to colour up the little piece I added at the side with some gold washi tape.  A fairly CAS card.