NEW FAVORITE!!!

i'm very excited to be participating in a blog hop with Altenew! I received my Educator's Certification in November after completing all the assignments and doing a live workshop, so I'm geared up to apply what I've learned.

There's an opportunity for you to win prizes, so please scroll down to the bottom of this blog post to see how to be a winner!!

It's pretty hard to pick a "new favorite" because whatever arrives in the mail most recently becomes a favorite pretty quickly! Of all the aspects of paper crafting and card making, die cuts, however, definitely win out. So when I saw the Rose Queen Die set, it was a "must have"!!

Let's start with the finished product-

Here is the process is used:

I cut the 3 images in the Rose Queen die set from watercolor paper (although you could use heavy cardstock if you prefer). I put the 3 images onto "Press and Seal" in order to hold them together while I painted them.

I kept all the pieces together to help "contain" the watercolors that I used, but if you want to, you could just paint each piece of the dies separately. It didn't matter to me if the white outline got paint on it, because I used a different outline as described below.

I use Distress Ink re-inkers as liquid watercolors because the colors are so bright and vivid and also because I have the matching markers as well, so that if I need to touch things up, I have the same colors to use. For the flower petals, I used Abandoned Coral and Mustard Seed, with the coral color toward the bottom of the petals and the yellow color toward the top. The beauty of using these watercolors is that they blend together so nicely. For the leaves, I used Lucky Clover and Cracked Pistachio. Once the paint had dried, I cut another set of the ides out of dark blue card stock which I then glued on top of the white outline die cuts to add a little dimension and to make the vivid colors "pop."

For the background, I again used watercolor paper and did some "ink smooshing" using Salvaged Patina, Prize Ribbon, and Peacock Feathers. After I put down a few layers of color, I used a paint brush to pick up the Prize Ribbon color and splattered that onto the background. I also spritzed the background with Shimmer Spritz to provide a little sparkle.

I considered dry embossing this background, but decided that the spatters added enough "texture" and I didn't want to detract from the beautiful flowers.

After arranging the floral dies onto the paper, I decided that the best way to show off the flowers was to put them on a square background. I decided not to use the die cut that was just the leaves. It just didn't seem to fit, but I will save it for use on another card. I cut off the bottom of the background piece to make it square and mounted the background onto a piece of fun foam for dimension and then put that onto a square, dark blue card base.

I send a lot of "Thank You" cards so I chose to use the Bold Thanks die set on this card. I cut the shadow die from the piece that I cut off the background above, and I cut the letters from holographic card stock, which really makes the card sparkle. Finally, I added a few gem stones with an iridescent look that coordinated well with the letters.

Here again is the finished card:

Prizes:

$130 in total prizes! Altenew is giving away a $20 gift certificate to 3 lucky winners and a $15 gift certificate to 4 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 01/09/2022 for a chance to win.

There’s MORE! What’s a hop without YOU?! We have included an Inlinkz at the Altenew blog for you to enter your gorgeous Altenew “New Favorite” creations. We will pick one of our favorite handmade creations from those who joined the linky party and they will receive a $10 Altenew gift certificate!

Altenew will draw 7 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 01/10/2022.

Hop list:

Altenew Blog

Virginia Lu

Pam Boedeker

Nancy Souza

Nandini Karmarkar

Bridget Casey

Karen Brown

Neha Aggarwal

Lana Taber

Terri Marie Koszler

Helen Kalb

Joylita Dsouza

Teri Stokes

Rosie Neustaedter

Irina Fonina

Nenette S. Madero

Ann Taylor

Susan Stagno

Annemarie Caister

I hope you've enjoyed the card, and the process. What fun to be in a blog hop!!