Thursday 1 December 2016

Altenew Joy to the World :D


A pair of pastel Altenew Christmas Rose Christmas cards :D Made using the superb free gift from issue 157 of Simply Cards and Papercraft! I LOVE this gift soooo much, and there'll be another video using this set up on Saturday too :D I love this style of layering stamps that #Altenew makes, and to have it as a free gift is fantastic!! I really enjoyed trying this style of having the outline stamp as well as the layers, it makes it so much more versatile, and the fact that you get the coordinating dies is phenomenal :D And its such a gorgeous looked flower too :D

I decided to use the method of die-cutting lots of the shapes first, and then using my MISTI to stamp on all the detail so that I could easily and quickly get the images perfectly lined up on the die-cuts :D  This is especially useful when you're using multiple flowers and leaves on a few cards, but it's totally doable with acrylic blocks too, as I'll show in Saturdays video where I was only using one flower, so it was quicker to stamp with blocks :D Using the MISTI is also invaluable when you haven't got a dark enough ink, as you can stamp the image multiple times in the exact same place to deepen the colour :D I treated myself to a MISTI back in March to cheer myself up, and I would not be without it now :D I don't use it on every card I make, but when it comes to batch making or using an ink pad that's drying up, its fantastic!! :D

So back to the cards! I used Memento Tuxedo black for all the outlines, as I wanted to colour the base image rather than leaving it white, and I used my Promarkers for this... Tea Dye for the pink rose, Mint for the teal rose, Lavender for the lilac rose and finally Meadow Green for the leaves, and I did use a little bit of Emerald to deepen the centres of the teal roses later on :D For the first stamped layer of colours, I used Green Hills Hero Arts ink for the foliage, and then Soft Pool Hero Arts for the Teal rose, and Lulu Lavender and Angel Pink Memento for the other two :D You then need one more darker shade for the centres, and I used Tide Pool, Passion Flower and Bubble Gum Hero Arts Inks :D For my background stamping of Joy to the World (annoyingly I forgot to press record for this bit :/ but its very simple!) I used first and second generation stamping using Wet Cement Hero Arts ink :D

I decided I needed a little bit of metallic, so I used a small texture stamp from the Winter Garden stamp set free with issue 37 of Creative Stamping (there will be a couple of videos with this set in the next few days too :D) with some Cosmic Shimmer Flake and Glitter glue, and then I used Silver Bullion #nuvo Gilding Flakes :D and I also decided to do the same thing for my sentiment and I did this onto a strip of vellum and wrapped it around the card :D The final steps were then assembling the flowers and leaves (TOP TIP: If you want to pre-plan where you place things, you could arrange it all, take a photo, and then follow that when sticking them down :D) and I used a mix of wet glue and 3D foam to add different dimensions :D Then finally I added some Bubblegum Blush Nuvo Crystal Drops which I had previously made and had let dry overnight :D Hope you liked the cards!! I really LOVE them and I have actually kept one on my shelf to remind me to make more when I have time :D :D :D

To see the process behind these cards, please watch my YouTube video below, or over on my channel CRaFTi PoTeNTiAl :D



To see my all of the Christmas cards I've made this year, have a look at my Playlist below :D



And to see other cards I've made using Magazine free gifts, check out this Playlist too :D



Lots more photos below :D












I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Anything Goes Challenge :D