Altenew Crafty Friends Blog Hop Day 2 + Giveaway

You should be arriving here from the amazing Nicole Picadura’s blog and we are so happy you are here!

Hi Folks! Kelly here, excited to share a couple cute projects with you for the Altenew Crafty Friends blog hop. For these cards, I ended up picking out my two favorite Altenew stamp/die sets, aside from the sets I already own – Hug Me and Peony Bouquet. At first I hesitated, because let’s face it, small, graphic foxes and large, romantic florals don’t exactly seem to go together. But I followed my heart. Just like the popular advice for art collecting, buy what you like (vs. what will match the colors in your living room) and it will all work out. And I think it did … shall we take a look?

First, let’s take a minute to reflect on how adorable these foxes are! Altenew is certainly known for their insanely beautiful floral stamps, I know, but these foxes have totally captured my heart. This little guy holds a bunch of balloons in the Hug Me stamp set, but there’s no reason you can’t give him something else to hold, like the small flower from the Peony Bouquet set. The flower conveniently has a stem for the fox to grab onto.

For the background of the card I blended some ink through the Flowing Drops Stencil to get a subtle pattern.

To color the brown fox, I used the Altenew Watercolor Paint Set, which is really a dream to work with. The colors are very vibrant, and it goes on heavy cardstock so easily. The photos here show how I colored the fox’s polka dotted shirt. I stamped him on copy paper, cut out the inside of the shirt to make a stencil, and blended ink through the stencil. Before removing the stencil, however, I layered the Altenew Feeling Dotty Stencil on top of my handmade stencil, and blended a slightly darker ink through the dots.

It’s so fun to make different shirts for him with patterns you already own! Speaking of making different pieces of clothing, I ended up making a few bandanas for him. Why? Well, I originally thought a purple bandana would go well with the other colors, but once it was on him I wasn’t as excited. I couldn’t just throw him away, so I stamped some extra bandanas and decided the light melon bandana would work better. Sometimes you’ve got options … don’t always feel like you’re stuck with a color choice.

The yellow flower he’s holding is stamped with 3 of the 4 detail stamps, every stamp except for the main petal color. Because I didn’t have a light yellow ink I watercolored the main color of the petals instead. It was pretty fun to watercolor and stamp on the same flower! Then to finish the card, I picked two sentiments from the Hug Me stamp set.

My next card features one of the foxes sitting in a field of flowers, letting someone know that he’s here for them. This fox is completely watercolored.

This card has a little twist … the fox and flowers actually swing out so that it can stand up!

Here’s a view under the florals. I’ve folded a strip of cardstock into a rectangle and adhered one of the long sides to the card base, and the opposite long side to the florals.

To flatten it for the envelope, you just press it to the left or right.

For the background I again used the Feeling Dotty stencil, but left the middle of the card white where the sentiment and fox are.

One last tip I’d like to share is how I quickly made multiples of the four-step forals. I start out with a small piece of cardstock and then move it through each of the four corners where I’ve lined up the corresponding stamps. This makes it really easy for you to try different color combinations. Just cut several small rectangles, and start stamping away. This is also a good way to make extras before putting your supplies away, like I did with these two flowers.

Who would have thought … small foxes with large florals?

Now let’s talk prizes…

Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 5 lucky winners and one Altenew Academy class to 5 lucky winners. There are also 12 awesome friends who are celebrating with us, and they are offering the following prizes:

• My Sweet Petunia: 3 MISTI Stamping Tools
• Jennifer Mcguire: Altenew $50 gift certificate and 10 handmade cards
• Online Card Classes: 3 Classes
• Create And Craft TV: Gift Certificate
• Ellen Hutson LLC: $30 Gift Certificate
• Chameleon Art Products: 5 pack of pens
• Stamp & Scrapbook Expo: $25 Gift Certificate
• Butterfly Reflections Ink: $25 Gift Certificate
• Simon Says Stamps: $25 Gift Certificate
• Scrapbook & Cards Today Magazine: 2 Copies of the Fall 2018 issue
• Scrapbook.com: $25 Gift Certificate
• Tombow USA: 10 pack of pens

Be sure to leave comments by Sunday, December 9th, 2018 for a chance to win! 37 winners will be chosen at random from the comments left on all of these blogs listed below and will be announced on the Altenew Card Blog and Altenew Scrapbook Blog on December 15th, 2018.

Before I go I’d like to send a big shout-out to Altenew! Wonderful products, and just as importantly, wonderful people : ) Your next blog stop is the fantastic Lydia Evans! And make sure to head over the Altenew blog to see the full hop list!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
-Kelly

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