Altenew Beautiful Day Revisited

January is usually a great month for relaxed crafting after the rush and pressure of Christmas card making and at the moment keeping occupied is an essential. I bought this Altenew beautiful day stamp set shortly after it first came out and have had a few goes with it but I never seemed to match the layers up successfully. The Altenew website has lots of handy hints and so I decided to try again.

 This time around I had the benefit of my stamping platform which made things a whole lot easier and I used an A5 sheet of card which enabled me to stamp a flower in each corner and a pair of leaves in the middle. The colours I used were (from the first layer up) Impress cupid pink, Impress old rose and Versafine habanero with Versafine onyx black for the outline. The leaves were Versafine spanish moss and olympia green.

There is a die set to match but I don't have it so I cut all the pieces out and edged them with crackling campfire DO and Versafine spanish moss to hide any white bits. 

This is the first card I made using a piece of blue inked card I found in my scrap pile. I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder called diamond in the rough after spritzing the card with water. This is a really good tip for improving the depth of the embossing without causing the card fibres to crack. I gently ran a blending sponge with faded denim DI over the raised parts to highlight them. I used enamel accents in black to highlight the stamens and added a Crafter's Companion die cut sentiment.

If you are having problems lining up your Altenew layering stamps I would recommend having a look at their website.

Tactical Diecutting!

 At the end of my previous post I showed an extra image I had stamped. I thought I'd be clever and stamp another image whilst the stamps were in place. I grabbed a piece of patterned paper that was lying on my desk from a previous project and stamped away. Unfortunately not only did I stamp the image but I got carried away and stamped the sentiment as well. 

What was I thinking????? The arty splatters looked like blood when I looked at it again the next day - not at all suitable for a sympathy card. I didn't want to waste the stamped image so with some careful diecutting I came up with this:

An oval nestie with it's matching scalloped oval cut in a metallic pink and some carefully placed gems. I mounted it on a stencilled Archival magenta hue background. I can still see the 'blood' but at least the recipient won't. Did I manage to save this image?

Poppy Sympathy

 Sadly I needed a sympathy card so dug out my Clearly Besotted brushed poppies set. I bought this well before stamping platforms became a thing and used to stamp it freehand with an acrylic block. It was never a problem to line up these particular stamps but a stamping platform makes it so much easier. 

I used Brilliance pearlescent orchid, Archival plum and Versafine spanish moss. The stamens and sentiment are stamped in Versafine onyx black.

I also stamped it on the splatter background paper I used in my previous post. This time I used Archival magenta hue for the base of the flower. 

I haven't made it up into a card yet as I'm not too sure about it - the splatters look a bit like blood to me and I'm not sure it's appropriate for a sympathy card. Perhaps I should have used another sentiment? Oh well you live and learn!

Monthly Challenge - January

 This month's letter is:

                              Z for Zigzag

The colour option was Zucchini which I just about managed to get onto the postcard this month.

I had other ideas for this month's entry but then I saw an offer for a die set by Pretty Quick that looked like it had been made for this challenge. It's called the chevrons panel and is a set of 4 dies - an outline which I didn't use, an inner panel that cuts the main zigzags with the circle, a circle die and the Hello sentiment. There was also a matching stamp set that has some sentiments and a floral stamp that fits in the circle which also fell into my basket!

With the miserable weather we've been having I felt the need for some hot colours so I blended mustard seed, spiced marmalade and gathered twigs DIs onto some white card and die cut it with the chevron die. I backed it with some splatter patterned paper and used some extra paper to cut a circle which I embossed with a flower embossing folder. The 'Hello' was cut from the circle waste. I diecut some flower layers in different patterned papers and edged the petals and leaves with the same DIs. These were stacked up and curled to add dimension and a punched stamen and tiny gem added.

Bits & Pieces

 Whilst having a rummage through my pink scrap bag I found an old background I had made. I'm guessing that it was made with scribbled and blended Gelatos. I had then run it through a Cuttlebug paisley embossing folder and outlined the design with a white gel pen. I cropped it to tidy up the edges and added a spare white die cut from my previous post with some purple vellum from my purple scrap bag. The sentiment is from a Paula Pascual set. Isn't it great to use up scraps (even if they have been hanging around for a few years)?

Alcohol Ink Flower

 I've been playing with alcohol inks and my yupo-type file dividers again. I used stream, sailboat blue, cloudy blue and meadow with some silver and pearl mixatives. I blew the inks around with a straw which I found was a lot easier than the squeezy bubble thing I had used before. I trimmed the piece down and matted it onto some white card. The flower die cut is an Amazon purchase and I added a simple Winnie and Walter sentiment. The card base is pearlescent green.

Dimensional Botanicals

 

I seem to have more luck with house plant dies than I do with real house plants! This card is made with some more dies from the Dimensional Botanicals Sizzix set that I used in my last post. I have also used another 3D embossing folder called Adorned Tile. It's a dark and gloomy day spirits and weather-wise so apologies for the grey photograph - the card base is actually a yellowy cream not greige. I highlighted the raised parts with Nuvo embossing mousse in Mother of Pearl. The leaves and pot were cut from scraps and I grounded the pot with a scrap that I had previously used to mask off an edge on another project. The sentiment is from a Dovecraft set I purchased recently from Amazon (15 sentiments for £2) stamped with Archival sepia. I backed the pot and the sentiment with foam - I have had some sheets of foam for years and barely used them so this was a good opportunity.

Here's another view showing the dimension of the leaves and the background.