Altenew July 30 Days of Crafting - Day 2

 Another month and another 30 Day Challenge from Altenew.   Day 2 - create a card with a die you've never used before....   

Easy for me... as I got a the Mini Delight Fabulous Flowers and it's associated die set last week and on Thursday afternoon I got time to have a play after having spent the morning with Grace.  It's 2 weeks School Holidays and I was looking after her.  

I went with a very clean looking card.  I started by stamping the little flower from the Mini Delight stamp set in Baby Pink, Fuchsia, Green Field and Shadow Creek inks.   Must say it took a few times to get it layered! Used the die from the associated die set to cut the arch.  Added a sentiment from Morning Asters stamp set.  I used an older Leafy Border die for some added texture on my background.  Added a few little iridescent dots.

Entering this into Darnell's NBUS challenge - first time using this mini delight set.

My morning on Thursday was spent with Grace and I getting our nails done. 

She was very patient as I had a full pedicure and manicure, and she just had the kids nail painting done.  It was a shocking wintery day with lots of rain, so nice to spend some time getting pampered.   Came home and she made a card.   She choses a card I had made and she tried to replicate it with Grace amendments!  She is great at choosing colours and putting her own spin on the cards.  

Hope all my USA friends and followers have had a great 4th of July celebrations.   
   

Stress Free Cardmaking Summit - Inspired by Erin Reed

 Still working my way through the presentation from the summit and over the weekend I found a little time to play.  This time inspiration came from the beautiful Joyful card fold that Erin Reed made.  She even included some love digital papers to download.   However, I did not use them this time around.  While I was re-organising my craft room, I came across a box of patterned paper that had been in a corner that wasn't too accessible - now right in view.  One of the paper pads was from Rosie's Studio and called "East meets West"  and that was what I used.

This is it standing up.  I just love the combo of red, black and white.  The paper pad was a NZA5 size and there were 4 pages of each design.   

Here is it opened.   I mostly used just the one design, placing it in different orientations.  The central panel was the amazing bird design and the right hand side is where I'll put my personal message. The outside front panel has my sentiment.  Ran with the red and black theme by die cutting the Altenew die from red and it's shadow layer in black.  Added a little Altenew sub-sentiment to finish.  

This is a really awesome fun fold and was so pleased how it turned out.  

Christmas Lilies.

One of the items I got at the Craft Show last week was an embossing folder from Altenew - Starry Patterns.   I did a bit of playing around with it - inking up the folder and getting different backgrounds.

For this one I inked up my folder with some Catherine Pooler It's a Boy ink.  I decided that I would make a frame with the panel - so cut with some square dies from Gina K Master Layouts #3.  I embossed a panel to layer behind with the folder.  I added the panel to a dark navy background and then onto a " square card.  I wanted to add a Christmas flower - so decided red lilies would look like a Christmas Lily.  This is an Altenew mini set called Calla Lily.  I stamped and cut with the matching die.  I used some red ink and green Alcohol pens. The sentiment is a pre-printed one - I'm not sure where it came from.  I trimmed and layered it onto some dark navy card.

As I used the folder to make a frame I'm adding this to the challenge at Christmas Kickstart - where the challenge is Festive Frames

And as this was the first outing for the embossing folder I'm adding it to Darnell's NBUS 

We had a lovely weekend, hubby and I headed up to our friends place in Mangawhai.  We haven't been up for awhile.  And our friends are travelling around England, Scotland and Europe.   We upgraded our car on Thursday - a 2013 Toyota Auris, so took it on a road trip.  The car drove beautifully and the weather over the weekend was very spring like.. I had a lovely afternoon sitting outside on the deck doing some colouring in a Zen Mindless colouring book.  

Used mostly greens and blues Prismacolor pencils to do this one.  I couldn't believe how relaxing it was... 3 hours just disappeared.    

Thanks for stopping by.   

Holiday Crafting

Finally I am sharing the two cards I made while we were away on our holiday break.  Since coming back I've been exhausted after my day at work... and then the weekend was full on with little time for crafting and blogging!  Did manage a couple of cards - one for a swap and one for an upcoming design challenge post.... more later...

So here are the two card I made between Christmas and New Year

 I got this new background die recently.  And I die cut it from some black card and layered on to the white base.  I used Altenew's Bitterroot Flower stencil and die for my focal floral image.  Sentiment is from Spellbinder's Popular Sentiment dies.   A few purple gems finished the card. 

Entering this into the TIME OUT challenge... New.  Two of my bloggy friends - Helen and Greta have joined the team.

Card two 

The flower is Altenew's Ambridge Rose painted with Altenew watercolour and splattered with Gold paint (Jasart ombre metallic paints)  I decided to fussy cut the flower.  I used some Mixed Media paper.  The background was made with the watercolour paints and salt to give some texture.  I cut it with Gina K Master Layouts 2 and die cut the frame from Gina K Master Layout 12.  Added a little bow from twine.    Sentiment is from Altenew Sentiment Strips 2.

Not too bad for only have minimal supplies.   Some watercolour paper, some watercolour paints, a few stamp sets and matching stencils and dies... a couple of ML's and some coloured card.   Got my fix - a couple of hours on a couple of days.. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope the New Years is starting well for you.

Morning Asters Birthday

 I've been playing with my new stuff from the weekend and my new Altenew stamps and dies that arrived mid last week.   I've got a family birthday coming up this weekend so combined the floral stamp and die with a technique I learnt at SENZ craft show.

The background panel was made using the chipboard panel I bought.  It comes all combined and can be cut up.  Before that, I used it to make the panel.  I started by adding Distress oxide inks to watercolour paper.  One was Cracked Pistachio and the other piece inked in Peacock Feathers.  I spritzed one of the panels added the chipboard panel and laid the other inked piece face down and ran the lot through my die cut machine.   I darker colour smooshes on the other one and where the chipboard was stays paler.  And the bonus is that the chipboard has beautiful colour on it and can be cut up and used.    While that was drying, I stamped the Altenew Build a Garden Morning Asters and used the matching stencils.  I didn't use all the layers of the stencils, leaving some white spaces. I used ink still on my blending brushes so softer colours.  Cut with the matching die and added to the base.  The sentiment is a pre-printed sentiment from Creative Expressions Everyday Wordies.   

I've done another double panel with this technique - using Chipped Sapphire and Cracked Pistachio.  So lots of panels to use.

Got to visit with Grace and Florence on Sunday.   

Hello You Coneflower - Sketch Saturday #726

 My Saturday late afternoon crafting didn't happen yesterday as around 5.00pm our power went out.   The evening was a dark, stormy one and it got dark very quickly.  By 6.00 the power still hadn't come back on, so we decided to head out for dinner.  I was slow cooking a casserole that still need 1 1/2 hours to go.  We went to have Ramen.  Very nice to have an impromptu  date night out!  

So after spending the morning doing a full polish of all my lounge furniture, I headed to the craft room.  I saw a great sketch challenge on Tristan blog  - Sketch Saturday #726 .  Tristan is one of the design team for the challenge.  

I really liked the challenge sketch - and it has an option - using ink blending.  

I loved the hexagon look on the sketch.  I have a hexagon cover die... not sure the make as I've lost the packaging.  I die cut and then used it as a stencil, masking off so I got just about half my panel  I did some ink blending with Altenew Lapis Luzuli ink set.  I decided a yellow coneflower would look great against the blues so used Altenew's Build a Flower: Coneflower using Altenew inks.  I had a scrap of dark blue mirror card and used Altenew's Versatile Greeting die to cut the hello.  I stamped a "You" from a Sentiment Strip stamp - cut the You off a longer sentiment. 

I love the contrast of the yellow and blue on this card.   

Mini Moo card - what is this?

So what is a Mini Moo?   Over at Splitcoaststampers recently one of the CAS techniques was a card using a little scrapling - called a mini moo -  it's a card that is 1.125" X 2.75" - half of a business card lengthwise.  Great for scaps. 

This was the challenge set by Maxine in our NZ swap group.  I have tons of scraps of card, patterned papers and backgrounds I've made.  So I had a look and came up with this CAS card.

My mini moo was a scrap of foiled and stenciled card.  It was an experiment background I had made with an Altenew foil background.  I over-stamped it with a Hero Arts stamp - Old French writing and then run a brown ink pad around the edges.  I made my little floral element next.  I took an Altenew mini stamp and die set - Adorable Anthurium.  I stamped the image and used my Spectrum Noir tri-blends to colour before die cutting it out.  Next was to make the panel.  I used Gina K Master Layouts to cut the bigger panel and then used a smaller narrow die to emboss the centre panel. I stamped the sentiment from the stamp set.   Added the mini moo and then the floral image.  A few sequins finished my card.    The card was going to my friend, Suna, who lives around 15 kilometres  (9 miles) from my place.   I posted the card and it took 10 days to get to her!  I would have been quicker to drive and drop it off!  

I'm adding this card to Darnell's NBUS challenge. - First outing for my Altenew stamp and die set.  Plus first time doing a mini moo card.  And adding to "Less is More" - Anything Goes 

We've had a lovely weekend away at our friend's in Mangawhai.  First trip north this year due to our friend's having family living with them since January.   The family were away for the weekend so their was room for us.   Very relaxing weekend. 

Floral background

 I was wanting to play at The Flower Challenge this month.... the theme being "Focus on the Background stamping"   I had Altenew's Cherry Blossom Bunch on my desk (had used it working on a DT card for later in the month) so made this card. 

I started by stamping the focal image in Altenew's Cloudy Night grey ink randomly across the panel.   I then die cut, stamped and stenciled the image.  I used the grey ink to stamp then used Altenew inks - Pastel Sunrise, Canyon Clay and Eucalyptus.    I used a Pinkfresh Studio stamp and die from the Just a Hello set stamped in Burnt Red ink.  I die cut the stamped background with a Lil'Inker die and matted onto  dark grey card.

Hope this is enough of a focus on the background - 

It's been an expensive weekend with our laundry issues.   The new washing machine come tomorrow and once we realised it was too wide for the space, we decided to change the super tub to a smaller size.   So bought that today... cost half as much as the machine!   Got it home and turns out the hoses are not the right size.   So now have to get a plumber to come and do some work...more money!   Hopefully by Wednesday or Thursday I'll have it all sorted and can do the washing.  

Thanks for stopping by.  

You are Amazing

What a difference a week makes.....Ngaire is doing extremely well.  She is still in hospital with her tacheotomy is still in but she is up and able to take a little walk around.  She was able to have a shower yesterday.  Her son headed home on Wednesday and her daughter today.    It will be a while before she will be able to head home to Wellington.  

It's been a bit of a wet weekend, so I've had some time in the craft room.   Yesterday I made this card. 

The little Altenew stamp and die set (Adore You Add on) has been sitting on my desk since I bought it at SENZ in July!  I was inspired by the image on the packaging.  I took my mini blending brush with some blue ink on it and used what was there to blend onto the panel.  I added some washi tape to the bottom and a strip of silver card.  I stamped the flowers and leaf a few times and die cut them.  I stamped the sentiment directly onto the card.  A few iridescent gems finished it. 

Entering this into Darnell's NBUS challenge - first outing for the little stamp and die set.  

Today, I made three cards - all Altenew Christmas cards for an upcoming swap. So not able to share yet.  With postage from NZ being so random these days, I wanted to get ahead and have them ready to go for when I get my swap partners.   I'm also doing another 3 card swap for a Flickr group.  So that will be my project for the week and upcoming weekend.  

Tomorrow I'm off to Court - got a call up for Jury Duty.   Hoping that I don't get chosen for a jury.  But if I do... so be it!   

Pastel Flowers

 Today I have another water coloured paper that has been die cut to make a flower.   Last Tuesday (my birthday) Grace and her Dad popped in to say Happy Birthday.  Of course, Miss Grace decided she need to do some ink blending..  she chose some Distress inks and added them to some mixed media paper.   When she left, I spritzed the paper to mix the colours... they turned out so pretty - all pastel colours. 

I took an Altenew 3D flower die - Fantasy Floral die and cut two flowers.   Love the combination of the colours.  I added some white paint splatters and some fine black splatters.  I used Altenew Mixed Frames to cut the panel and added a Happy Birthday sentiment from Altenew Sentiment stripes 3 set.  This card is for a friend who's birthday was on Friday.  She lives in Australia but arrived today for a two week holiday here in NZ to catch up with her whanau (Family).  We are heading into the city very soon to meet up with her for dinner.   I haven't seen her for 5 years - when I last visited the Gold Coast just before my Mum passed.   Will be great to catch up with her and her two daughters.

I'm entering this into this month's Inspiration Challenge at Altenew

Thanks for stopping by.   

Gelli plate backgrounds.

 Yesterday I posted a picture of some of the Gelli plate backgrounds I made.  

Today I'm sharing two cards I made with some of them.

First up is the pink and gold one.  

I made a mini slimline card.  I used Altenew Natures Blossom stamp set to make the focal image.  Die cut a birthday sentiment from Honey Bee and added the sub-sentiment from the same set.

Next up was a one of the backgrounds that was a bit dark looking.  I'd added too much purple ink - but look at how great this one turned out.

I used a 3D embossing folder by Altenew and then a sanding block to take a bit of the paint off before running my Hero Arts Unicorn White ink lightly over the top.  The sentiment strip is from a pre-printed sheet by Taylored Expressions.  

I still have quite a few left to play with.  

Paper Ribbon Technique - two ways

 Recently I saw a fabulous technique - a twisted paper ribbon technique - that the delightful Natasha Foote did.  You can watch her You Tube video HERE

It's a great way to use up scraps or like me - some of my hundreds of paper pads.

Here is the first panel I did.... I can tell you that the panel is NOT what Natasha showed.   I went like a bat out of hell... and when I finished it, realised I didn't follow the instructions correctly.  However I really like the look... more of a criss cross ribbon look.

I used papers from a pack I got from K-Mart that is Australian based paper.  I paired the paper with some green card.  I die cut and stamped a butterfly from Altenew's Dovetail Butterflies set.  The sentiment is from Altenew's Sentiment Strips 3.

And I remade the panel doing the ribbon twist correctly 

Kept this one CAS...by just adding a sentiment from Gina K stamped onto a white circle with a green layer.  

I like how I finished off the first one best... the black base really made the panel pop with the large butterfly on it.   

Thanks for stopping by today. 

Watercoloured Blossoms with Altenew

 Hi - It's the final day of our challenge at Die Cut Divas  

 

Our theme for the month of August is "watercolor real or faux".

The Prize will be a $20 gift certificate to Altenew.

Today I have another floral card.  Altenew make the most amazing variety of Floral stamps as well as some amazing sentiments. 

A while back I had made some watercoloured backgrounds in a variety of pinks and greens using Altenew's 36 pan watercolour paints.  For today's card I took these panels.  From the pink one, I stamped and die cut two of the flowers from Altenew's Nature Blossoms set using inks from the Tea Party ink set.  I missed stamping the base layer to allow the painted background to show through.  I did the same with the leaves from the set using inks from the Tropical Forest set.  With the rest of the green watercolour paper I die cut some branches from the Branches and Berries die set.   To my background, cut with a Gina K Master Layout 2, I added some leaves from the Foliage Stencil in Parrot ink. I added some splatter with the Moss ink.   I stuck the ligher flower with tape to the card, and added the brighter one on foan tape. Added all the leaves and branches.  Stamped the sentiment from Fresh Freesia stamp set to finish off my card. 

I have enjoyed this month's challenge as Altenew is my favourite stamp company.  And I've been enjoying all types of watercolouring.  Our challenge finishes today so come and join us.

 

Faux Watercolouring with Altenew Inks and stamps

Hi there.  It's my day to share at Die Cut Divas...

 

Our theme for the month of August is "watercolor real or faux".

The Prize will be a $20 gift certificate to Altenew.

Today I'm sharing a Faux watercoloured card.   A great easy way to do watercolouring.

To make my watercoloured flowers I used the layers of Nature Blossoms flower. I inked up with the first colour and spritzed with water before stamping onto some watercolour paper . I dried with my heat gun and did the next layer in the same manner. And finally the last layer. I used the Red Sunset inks from Altenew - one using the first three inks and two using the 2nd - 4th inks. The centres are stamped using inks from the Warm and Cozy set. I die cut with the matching dies and then blended a little of the ink on the edges. For the leaves I used inks from the Green Meadow inks and did some smooshing onto wet watercolour paper. After it dried, I overstamped some leaves. I die cut the leaves and with some of the extra watercolour paper, I die cut some branches from the Branches and Berries Die set. My other faux watercolour technique used the Classy Stripe stencil - I inked it with the Crimson ink, spritzed with water and used it to "stamp" onto my card base. Loved how it looks. the sentiment is from the Engraved Flowers set.

Do come and join us for this month's challenge.

Watercolouring with Altenew at Die Cut Divas

 Hi there.  It's time for a new challenge at Die Cut Divas.... Our sponsor this month is none other than...

Our  theme for the month of August is "watercolor real or faux". There's lots of techniques you can go with for watercolor real or faux. We'll leave it up to you.

The Prize will be a $20 gift certificate to Altenew.

As anyone who visits here frequently knows I ADORE Altenew stamps, dies and stencils. And I enjoy watercolouring... So I had no problems making a card to inspire.

I used Our Friendship Blooms Stamp and Die set . I had a slimline cream card base cut (3.25" x 6.25") so decided to use it. I took some watercolour paper and stamped and die cut the flowers. I then took some of the paints from the Altenew 36 pan watercolor paints and added to my floral image. I chose different shades of blues and greens. For my background panel I took another piece of watercolour paper and added some water to the top and let it drip down. I then added some green paints. I added some black paint splatters before adding my floral piece. I white embossed one of the sentiments from the set and fussy cut it.

Do come and join us for our challenge.  It's going to be so much fun.  So many ways to incorporate Watercolouring, real or faux.  

Little sneakers card.

 Recently I did an order with Altenew and got a little free stamp ( I ordered the matching die as well)  The little stamp set was a pair of sneaker.  They are super cute.

So yesterday I got a bit of time to play and this is what I came up with 

I stamped the sneakers and die cut them out.  I used Altenew Woodless Watercolour pencils to add the colour.  I used Gina K Master Layouts 2 to cut a the two panels and layers.  For the centre panel I added some washi tape - one of grass and a sliver of gold tape and the little sentiment from the set.  Added the sneakers with some dimensionals. To add some texture I used an embossing folder on the second panel.  

I also got to get my NZ swap card done.  It's a Book binding card and will be on it's way to Maxine tomorrow.... once she's got it, I'll share it. 

And today I got a few more cards done.  I'll share in the next few days.  

Gift Bags inspired by Gina K

 I managed to watch Gina K's FB live this week where she made some cute Halloween Gift Bags.  I don't have many Halloween stamps so decided to make a few Christmas bags and a little birthday one.  Gina kindly provided a template to make her box which is a sweet little 3.5" square bag which is what I used to make my birthday bag.

I used some kraft card and used a Hero Arts stencil and some brown Altenew ink to add a pattern to my background.  I used a little Altenew set "Blooming Blossoms" for my flower and leaves.  I fussy cut the flower and leaves.  The sentiment is from Altenew "Merry Reindeer" set, white embossed on a black Scallop oval from Spellbinders.  I attached my topper with a white and silver bakers twine bow.

For my Christmas bags I wanted to use the reindeer from Merry Reindeer, but it is too big for the small square bag so I did some adjustments and made a taller bag.  

 I used some red card to make the bag and added some Couture Creation patterned paper as my background.  I stamped the reindeer onto some white card and then stamped the banner part onto some red card.  I die cut the reindeer and fussy cut to the red piece.  I white embossed the sentiment.  A nice big red ribbon bow finished off the bag. 

And my third bag is a wider, taller one.

I again used some patterned paper for the background and used the bakers twine to close the back.  I had such fun making these and am sure there will be a few more made before Christmas.  I think I'll add some "reindeer poo" inside these ones.  

Thanks to Linda for the heads up - I'm adding my middle bag to the challenge at The Sisterhood of Crafters - Anything but a card.  A fun challenge. 

Am pleased to advise the kitchen is FINISHED - well 99.9% - just the garbage disposal unit to be added to the sink and the rangehood to be connected to the outside.  I am so happy to be back in the kitchen cooking.  So much easier.