Altenew Educator "Love & Friendship" Blog Hop + Giveaway...

Welcome to Altenew Educators Blog Hop! We are celebrating "Love and Friendship" in this hop. If you’ve been following along, you’ve just arrived from Vicki Finger's blog. If you find a broken link, you'll find a master list of the hop links at the Altenew Card Blog.

I am very excited as this is my very first blog hop, and that too for my favorite crafty brand Altenew!

When the call went out for the Altenew Educator Certification Program in December 2017, I applied without much expectation of being selected. After all, it was a worldwide call for an amazing brand and sure to receive hundreds of applications. Imagine my surprise when I received the acceptance email!

I took over a year to complete my certification. And I love this flexibility that allows for doing the classes at my own pace. The classes themselves are absolutely amazing. I learned both new techniques as well as great twists on old techniques. The support from Altenew team has been great. And the feedback from Virginia and Erum after every challenge is invaluable.

My first card uses one of my absolute favorite Altenew sets - Peony Bouquet. This is one of the most beautiful floral layering sets by Altenew. I have used it in the majority of my projects during AECP. For the card today I used a medium I have explored very little - watercolor pencils.

I stamped the images with light ink on watercolor paper and die-cut them with the coordinating dies, after coloring. I rather liked the texture I got on the paper. So I didn't use any water for blending. I used two shades of pink and white for blending for the flower. Here is a close-up of the flower.

The bud was colored the same way. Only I used much more white. The leaves were colored with two shades of green and yellow for blending.

To assemble the card, I started with a cream card base with a speckled surface. I placed the Sunburst stencil on top and lightly applied Sand Dunes ink through it. I also splattered some pink distress ink over the stenciling.

The sentiment is from the Fresh Freesia stamp set. I absolutely adore this set for its beautiful sentiments. I arranged the die-cuts and adhered them with glue, popping up some with foam tape for added dimension.

Here is the completed card.

For my second card, I used the beautiful Cross Stitch Flower set. This set does take some practice to master. But the results are well worth the effort.

I placed the stem image at the corner of my card base and stamped with Evergreen ink, stamping off the ink once to get a lighter shade. I rotated the card base 180° and repeated the process. A stamp positioner is essential for creating this card as it saves time and helps in aligning the layers properly.

One trick I find very useful is stamping the layers on separate sheets of vellum or any transparent paper. I stamped on acetate sheets with black pigment ink and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder. You can then easily align each layer, place the corresponding stamp on top and use the stamp positioner for stamping. Here is one of the stamped flowers.

I used the Red Sunset mini ink cubes for the flower and the Green Fields mini ink cubes for the stem. 

The sentiment is cut using the Simply Hello die. I decided to use the eclipse technique which is so trendy right now. I love it because it is subtle and doesn't take away from the gorgeous stamping. The secondary sentiment, stamped in black is also from the Cross Stitch Flower set.

Here is a look at the completed card.

My third card is in a completely different style. Though Altenew is most famous for its beautiful floral stamps, they also have some great sets with geometric designs. I have long been fascinated by the Art Deco period with its graceful designs. That was my inspiration for this card. I used three stamps from the Simple Shapes stamp set to create a background of repeating patterns.

A stamp positioner is very useful when creating a design based on a repeating pattern. I placed the three stamps together and stamped on a scrap piece of paper. Measuring the image gave me the distance by which I needed to move the paper to create an evenly placed pattern. In this case, I needed to move by one inch. I stamped with embossing ink and heat embossed each row with metallic gold embossing powder. I flipped the pattern every alternate row. Once the background was ready, I smooshed it with distress inks in yellow, pink, orange and red. I used water and a brush to add more color to the shapes so that they stood out. Here is a closer look at the background.

Once the panel was dry, I trimmed it and added some more gold embossing powder at the sides to give it a slightly grungy look. I popped it up with foam tape and mounted it on a black card base.

For the sentiment, I die-cut the Simply Hello die a few times and stacked the die-cuts together. The whole thing was covered with 3-4 layers of clear embossing powder. The secondary sentiment is from the Cross Stitch Flower stamp set. I heat embossed it on a strip of black paper with the same metallic gold embossing powder and added it to the card base, popped up on some foam tape.

Here is the completed card.

I hope you liked my cards. I would love to know which is your favorite. You can continue the hop by visiting Amy Hill next. She is very talented and has something great in store for you. You can go to the Altenew Card Blog if you want to start at the beginning. I also have the complete blog hop list for you below.

Hop Order:
Altenew Card Blog
Terri Marie Koszler
Michelle Ochoa Murray
Maryam Sharara
Amber Rain Davis
Irina Fonina
Teri Wilson
Francine Dodwell
Patty Mello
Nenette S. Madero
Vicki Finger
Nandini Karmarkar - That's me!
Amy Hill
Christine Pennington
Erum Tasneem

Offers

To celebrate AECP blog hop and encourage people to join in the AECP program, Altenew has discounted the following bundles by 20% from 7/19/2019 to 7/21/2019.

AECP Level 1 Class Bundle

AECP Level 2 Class Bundle

Prizes
A blog hop is no fun without some great prizes! So Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 3 lucky winners! Please leave a comment here on the Altenew Blog by 7/26/2019 for a chance to win.

We’ll also draw a winner to receive a $15 gift certificate from the comments left on each designer’s blog on the blog hop list below. All winners will be announced on the Altenew blogs on 7/30/2019.

That's all for now. Thank you for your wonderful comments. They make me very happy!

Love,
Nandini