Altenew 7th Anniversary Blog Hop Day 4 + Giveaway (over $1,400.00 in Total Prizes)

Happy Anniversary to our dear friends at Altenew! It’s always a good day when we celebrate crafting partners doing well, and we extend our congratulations to them – and thanks for their partnership in bringing beautiful craft supplies to us all! You should have arrived here from Karen Brown’s blog. If not, the fun starts on the Altenew blog.

Giveaway Prizes

Over $1,400 in total prizes! Altenew is giving away a $70 gift certificate to 5 lucky winners and one Altenew Academy class to 15 lucky winners. There are also 19 awesome companies/crafty friends who are celebrating with us, and they are offering the following prizes:

• Altenew: 5 $70 Altenew gift certificates

• Jennifer McGuire Ink: $100 Altenew gift certificate 

• Gina K. Designs: $100 gift certificate

• My Sweet Petunia: $100 gift certificate

• Spellbinders Paper Arts: $100 gift certificate

• CiLi in Papers: €75 gift certificate

• Lawn Fawn: $75 gift certificate

• Online Card Classes: 3 online class spots

• Altenew Academy: 15 online class spots

• Auzz Trinklets N Krafts: $50 gift certificate 

• Concord & 9th: $50 gift certificate

• Hero Arts: $50 gift certificate

• My Little Attic: $50 gift certificate 

• Scrapbook.com: $50 certificate

• Simon Says Stamp: $50 gift certificate

• Pinkfresh Studio: $50 gift certificate

• Bumbleberry Papercrafts:  £25 gift certificate

• Waffle Flower: 1 prize bundle valued at $32

• Butterfly Reflections Ink: $25 gift certificate

• Ellen Hutson LLC: $25 gift certificate

• Scrapbook & Cards Today: 1 copy of Scrapbook & Cards Today Spring 2021 issue

Be sure to leave comments by 4/18/2021 for a chance to win one of 41 prizes! To make the hop more exciting, start your comment with “Hi from (city or country where you’re from)!” 41 winners will be chosen at random from the comments left on any of the blogs listed above and will be announced on the Altenew Card Blog on 4/24/2021.

I’m Sandy Allnock, and I’m excited to get out pencils, brushes, and paints to make a card….especially when it’s a floral when I have an excuse to use my favorite color yellow!

I chose to use Book Engravings – yes it’s a floral stamp set! It’s a layering stamp set, but I’ll use it without the layers and color in my own; you can also get dies and stencils that coordinate. But the teaching moment here is about when you might consider using watercolor pencils vs watercolor paints. Because, well, sometimes one is easier for a particular job than the other!

I stamped the flowers in VersaFine Onyx Black ink pad —- it’s waterproof and gives me a great crisp outline. My favorite watercolor paper for cards is Arches Cold Press; not so much texture to make stamping hard, but enough to keep the watercolor moving nicely. The card was finished off with a layer of Ebony cardstock popped on dimensional adhesive on a Cherry Red card base.

Watercolor pencils are often easier for small areas, for shading, and for moments when you get nervous about all that watercolor splashing around! You can take your time coloring slowly, nothing will bleed or blend yet – then just pick up that brush once you’ve taken a deep breath…or maybe a little glass of vino for courage!

Backgrounds are a great place to use watercolors – large open areas can be covered quickly and smoothly with color and a brush. I like to recommend using a brush larger than you think you need just because it keeps you loose! But in this case, I wanted the round 8 so I could get in between the flowers.

You can check out my swatching of the pencils and watercolors on my blog or YouTube!

Why paint a background at all, you ask? Well how about those of us who go outside the lines!?! Yep that’s why I first started painting and coloring backgrounds. It hides my oopses!

I hope this project has given you a little bit of courage to try some watercolor, and maybe when to try pencils to keep things under control!

Blog Hop

Now go visit the rest of the blog hop – there’s a ton of inspiration out there waiting for you! Next on the hop is Seeka! In case you get lost along the way, here’s the complete hop listing for today:

Altenew Blog
Jennifer McGuire
Jaycee Gaspar
My Sweet Petunia
Agnieszka Malyszek
Kristina Werner
Tenia Nelson
Paige Evans
Reiko Tsuchida
Auzz Trinklets N Krafts
Karen Brown
Ellen Hutson LLC –> You are here!
Seeka
Katrina Howe

Supplies