Big Poinsettia

Hello friends!  It's time for me to get back in the saddle.  I stepped away long enough to make and mail a significant number of Christmas cards while still trying to be a good dog mom for Sophie and manage a whole lot of other things that continue to crop up.  I keep hoping things will level off... maybe in the new year.

Today I have two cards made with the Altenew Poinsettia 3D -- a gift from the sweetest friend.  The poinsettias on each card were brushed with Distress Oxide Inks, then rested on miscellaneous foliage die cuts against an embossed background panel.  I'm truly not happy with the sentiment flag on the first card.  In fact, it was covering up something else I didn't like and, well, I won't go into that whole long story...

The second card is simpler.  After I stamped the sentiment I inked up the stamp and used it to stamp the foliage over and over, reinking frequently.  That's how it got the mottled look.  Also, I water-spritzed the poinsettia after adding color.

Closer:

I will come back to this poinsettia in 2024 as I hope to NOT be this far behind again.  Right.  I believe I said that last year, but there's nothing wrong with being an optimist!

There are a lot more Christmas cards coming.  So many you'll get tired of me.  I hope to also start getting caught up with my blog visiting.  You all are the best inspiration.  The best enablers, too, tsk tsk.  You know I love it!

Happy holidays!

Double D Challenge: Stencils/Altenew Collaboration

Hello!  It's time again for a Double D challenge, and today is special because Altenew has kindly shared some of their amazing product with the team and sweetened our own Double D prize pot with a $50 gift certificate to the Altenew shop.

Play along with Altenew's August Inspiration Challenge and you just might be a winner there, too.

    

At the Double D Challenge our current theme is stencils, but just this once the theme is optional.  For more thorough details, please visit the Double D blog.

In light of our play date with Altenew the team has used some of their awesome products.  I've played with the Build-a-Garden:  Morning Asters set, which is pretty amazing with stamps, dies, stencils, and a blending brush all included.  The stenciled flowers and leaves is a whole different look for me with a lot of contrast in the colors I've used.  I rather like it for a change, but stenciling is a whole other way of coloring stamps, new to me and will require further experimentation with the colors and technique.

I love that there's one stencil with nothing but some spare background leaves you can use whichever way you please.  In this case I added a nice blue which coordinates with the green and complements the saffron and mustard shades of the flowers.  Several sentiments come with the set, all small enough to tuck into any space, such as here in the corner of the oval frame which I pulled from my spare card parts.

Remember, in addition to our creative winners there are two prizes:

1. A $50 gift certificate from Altenew
2. The stencil pictured below, straight from Double D

I encourage you to visit the Double D blog to get the full story, plus you'll see all the fun the team had playing with Altenew.  Thanks so much!

Stamps:  Altenew Build-a-Garden:  Morning Asters  Paper:  Neenah Classic Crest Super Smooth Solar White  Ink:  Various Stampin' Up for stenciling, Memento Tuxedo Black for sentiment  Other:  Memory Box Oval Master Frame (2016)

A Card and an Update

Dear friends, first I would like to offer my thanks and gratitude for your support and kind words during this time that's been all upside down and backwards.  I hope I haven't missed emails or been unresponsive and, if so, please accept my most sincere apologies.

About Tuesday's MRI:  Happy dance!  It was the final word after an ultrasound and a CT scan left me unsure of my future.  As it turns out, all of my insides are perfectly normal.  Whew!  That was a crazy ride.  Let's not even talk about that anymore.  It's nice to have something to celebrate, isn't it?

I have a card to share today which I made... gee... a month ago maybe?  The stamp set was a Christmas gift and the card was sent to the giver as a thank you.

The set is Altenew's Books Are Magic.  Colored with Tombow markers and cut with the matching dies.  My friend knows me well -- I love books, love to color, and love when I have matching dies with a set.  I played with Mintay papers and chose all colors to coordinate with the papers.  The sentiment is actually from another Altenew set.  I'll list everything below.

I'll be trying to catch up with visiting in the coming days.  I'm so ready to get back to my happy place.  Have a wonderful day!

Stamps:  Altenew Books are Magic (with matching dies) and Wishing You (sentiment)  Paper:  Fabriano Artistico Extra White 140 lb hot pressed watercolor, coral textured cardstock, Mintay Dear Diary designer paper  Ink:  Palette Noir, SU Chocolate Chip for sentiment  Coloring:  Tombow markers  Other:  Spellbinders Hemstitch Rectangles, miscellaneous small rectangle die, Scotch brand foam mounting tape to pop up sentiment

Two More for Christmas

Hello and happy day to all!  In spite of the new order of things due to COVID, this is still a busy time of year.  I've been totally focused on getting the Christmas cards finished and in the mail (I waited too long!), but I believe they're all done now.  Today's cards are the last of them.

Altenew emperor penguins with a Power Poppy sentiment is up first.  I made three of these.  I dearly wanted to add white snow splatters, but then I thought about how rarely it snows on Antarctica, so I left them off.  Silly of me because it would have been so much prettier, I think, and when you're the card maker you can do anything you want, right?  Next time they're getting snowflakes!

(Stamps:  Altenew Warm Hear, Power Poppy Simple Joys sentiment  Paper:  Neenah Super Smooth Solar White  Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Wendy Vecchi Archival Watering Can, DOX Abandoned Coral and Salty Ocean  Coloring:  Copics  Other:  Elizabeth Craft Warm Diamonds microfine glitter, 1" circle punch, Poppystamps Snowflake Ribbon die)

I'd planned on making multiples of the next card, but in spite of letting the designer paper do a lot of the work, the die cut sentiment made it far too time consuming.  I'll come back to this paper with a different idea later.  Turns out this is one of my favorite cards this year.  Love that Mintay designer paper!

(Paper:  Mintay Christmas Stories designer paper, Neenah 110 lb white  Other:  Amber gems, Wink of Stella on snowflakes  Dies:  Memory Box Warm Christmas Wishes and Bauble Snowflakes, Impression Obsession Small Snowflake Set, Marianne Designs Anja's Oval)

I'll be playing in my room, making cards and backgrounds and just generally having fun... when I have time... so I may pop in again before Christmas.  After all, there are still 11 days left...  Happy holidays, everyone!

Flowerful Friday: Happy Bloom Three Ways

Welcome to another Flowerful Friday.  Maybe you remember I mentioned in an earlier post I was having trouble with my coloring and had made several "duds".  Well, one of the stamps I was having a problem with is Altenew's Happy Bloom.  It's a beautiful set with one large stamp, plus several smaller stamps and a few sentiments.  You can make lots and lots of cards with it and no two alike.  A smart purchase, I thought.  The problem was my own haste or expectations... I'm not sure... but I finally colored one I'm somewhat satisfied with.

For this card I stamped in Memento London Fog on X-Press It Blending Card and colored with Copics.  I masked the two flowers that overlap the sentiment banner and used a stamp positioner to stamp the sentiment.  Popped up the image panel and finished with iridescent sequins.

Inside I stamped a partial image in amethyst ink and a sentiment from another Altenew set -- Wishing You.

Okay... want to see the cards I wasn't happy with?

The card below was stamped in Ranger Antique Linen on Arches 140 lb hot pressed watercolor paper and watercolored with Stampin' Up! Watercolor Wonder Crayons.  Splatters, sequins, stitching, distressing.  It has grown on me and now I think maybe it's not so bad.  In some ways I like it better than the Copic colored card.  The sentiment is minutely off.  I know... picky, picky!

Card #3 is mixed coloring media:  Stamped in SU's River Rock ink -- a water based muted green -- on Neenah 110 lb white.  The coloring is Prismacolor Pencils blended with Gamsol odorless mineral spirits.  The faint blue shading around the image is Copic B21.  Finally, I added blue watercolor splatters.  Some of it I like a lot.  Some of it not so much.  The sentiment is way off.  I know it shouldn't bug me so much, but it does.

Holy cow, that's a lot of coloring!  I wish I could take the things I like best about each card and put them together.  Maybe next time.  I see lots more Happy Bloom coloring in my future.

You all have a nice weekend now and I'll see you again on Monday!

Altenew Daffodil

Greetings friends!  Who knew I'd be so long between posts?  Not I.  First one thing and then another kept me from my happy place, and not all of it was very much fun.  Think "mail theft" and "bank account" and you might get an idea of what I've been dealing with.  'Nuff said on that!

If I stay away from stamping too long I get out of the groove.  It gets more difficult.  Know what I mean?  I thought I'd ease back in with something simple and relaxing.  I bought this Altenew Wishing You set for the sentiments -- lots to work with there.  However, it also comes with this pretty daffodil and a hummingbird.  I couldn't fit the hummingbird on my A2 card, but here's the daffodil and one of the many sentiment combos.

After embossing the daffodil in white I watercolored with Gansai Tambi paints on Strathmore Vellum Surface mixed media paper.  Watercoloring on this paper is a different experience, but I like it for a change.  I also did some light smooshing and splattering, but because I wanted a soft and airy look I kept that to a minimum.

I smooshed aqua paint on the die cut corner, too.  Lastly, the sentiment was stamped in Versafine Onyx Black.

I'll be back on Wednesday with something I made before all the bad stuff happened.  Hopefully everything will be back to normal soon.  Have a happy day!

Stamps:  Altenew Wishing You  Paper:  Strathmore Mixed Media Vellum Surface, Bazzill textured  Ink:  Versamark, Versafine Onyx Black  Coloring medium:  Gansai Tambi watercolor paints  Accessories:  Die-namites Scrolly Corner die

My First Altenew

Good morning (or afternoon or evening)!  I hope all is well and good in your world today.  I have yet more stamping to share today.  Share 'em if you've got 'em, right?  I recently purchased my first Altenew stamps.  Golden Garden for the flowers, and Wishing You for the sentiment.  We danced around each other for a while and then I thought it was time to sit down and play.

There are a lot of different stamps in the Golden Garden set and it took some figuring on scrap paper to decide how best to put them together.  Ultimately I used just three of its stamps and made a very simple card.

I like the brush stroke look of this set and really just wanted something super easy to color.  A few strokes and dabs with limited Copics was all it required to look passable.  You could do more or less.  It's hard for me to leave well enough alone.

This is one leaf stamp and one seed cluster, each stamped twice with no masking.  The flower was cut out and glued on.  I drew intersecting lines with a black Copic Spica glitter pen and accented behind the image panel with a black Memory Box Riviera Corner.

More playing is in order with these stamps as there are about 15,000 different things you can do with them.  That number, by the way, is unverified, but you can do a lot.

I'm off and running again.  Have a good day!

Stamps:  Altenew Golden Garden (flowers) and Wishing You (sentiment  Paper:  Neenah Classic White for image panel, Neenah 110 lb white for card base, SU Marigold Morning, black  Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics for coloring  Accessories:  Queen & Co sequins, Copic Spica Pitch Black glitter pen, Memory Box Riviera Corner