Sixth Street Sundries

Emily Midgett

artists 24 pan watercolors

Altenew July 2023 Marvelous Monthly Series Release Blog Hop + Giveaway ($300 in Total Prizes!)

Hi there! Today, Altenew is hosting a blog hop to celebrate their July 2023 Marvelous Monthly Release! You should have arrived here from Jaycee Gaspar, and your next stop is Caly Person You can also start back at the beginning at the Altenew Blog. I have a project to share using the stunning new Build-A-Garden: Sweet Lilies set, so let’s get started with the details!

The new Build-A-Garden: Sweet Lilies set features a gorgeous 6×8 stamp set that is complete with a stunning floral arrangement as well as a wide variety of beautifully poignant sentiments that would work for so many different occasions. The set also features a layering stencil set and a small blending brush! You can also purchase the coordinating die as an add-on, which features a large die for the floral arrangement as well as dies for the larger sentiment stamps. I love the polished look that these sentiment dies give to the card! If you find yourself loving the Build-A-Garden series each month, you can become a subscriber HERE to make sure that you get first dibs and a discount!

For my card today, I began by heat embossing the gorgeous floral arrangement from Build-A-Garden: Sweet Lilies on a panel of cold press watercolor paper using silver embossing powder. I couldn’t resist painting the huge, beautiful lilies in the arrangement rather than using the layering stencils, so I pulled out my Artists’ 24 Pan Watercolor Set, which is one of my most favorite sets of watercolors in my stash! The colors are beautifully vibrant and unique shades, or they can be mixed to create a custom color palette. For today’s card, I did quite a bit of mixing and matching to create this lavender, coral, pink, and green bouquet, adding Fall Harvest to the Shades of Purple to create the muted lavender shade, mixing Rock Collection with Green Meadows for the deep green leaves, etc. Each of the colors on the bouquet was created by combining two (or more!) of the colors in the palette. Sometimes, a little tweak is all you need to create a truly gorgeous custom color palette!

Once I had finished watercoloring the image, I used the coordinating die to cut it out. I wanted to coordinate my background with the colors in the image, so I decided to match my vibrant pink slimline background with an alcohol marker from my stash, then outline the white edges of the die cut. I love to keep the color palettes on these vivid projects as true as possible, so I avoided any white or black at all, preferring to allow the colors be incredibly vibrant! To accent the vivid bouquet, I die cut the Floral Lace Die from the same shade of bright watermelon pink cardstock. I also lightly blended some Midnight Violet ink along the top and bottom of the slimline card front to coordinate with the purple in the bouquet. I arranged the watercolored floral image and lacy die cuts on the card front, adhering them with a mixture of liquid and foam adhesive for lots of different heights.

Once I’d finished arranging the background, it was time to add a sentiment. I heat embossed the large “sending” and a smaller sentiment strip onto yet another piece of that bright watermelon pink cardstock using silver embossing powder. I used the coordinating die to cut the “sending” and trimmed the slim sentiment strip with my trimmer. I adhered them both to the center of my card with another layer of foam tape to allow them to really pop from the card front. I added a few shimmering jewels for some sparkle as a final touch!

Well, that’s all for my project. Now for some fun giveaway information!

$300 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $100 gift certificate to 1 lucky winner and a $40 gift certificate to 5 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 07/24/2023 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 6 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 07/26/2023.
*The winner of the $100 gift certificate will be chosen from comments left on the Altenew blog. 

Here’s the full hop list in case you get lost:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!

Altenew 9th Anniversary Blog Hop Day 1 + Giveaway (over $2,200 in Total Prizes)

Hi there! I am so excited to be a stop on Day 1 of the Altenew 9th Anniversary Blog Hop! You should have arrived here from the Simon Says Stamp blog, and your next stop is Mindy Eggen. You can also start at the beginning at the Altenew Card Blog. One of the best parts about the anniversary festivities each year, aside from the fabulous blog hop filled with wonderful prizes, is the special large scale Anniversary stamp set. These enormous stamp sets (seriously-enormous. 8.5″x10″!!!) are so unique and beautiful. This year’s set, called Billowing Peonies, is extra special because the large scale of the images works beautifully with the new Stampwheel! And, bonus, Tasnim has designed a set of coordinating layering stencils that are absolutely phenomenal and totally massive. So if coloring isn’t your jam, you have incredible options at your disposal with these spectacular stencils! I have two projects to share with you today using the stunning peony arrangement in Billowing Peonies, so let’s get started with the details.

The Billowing Peonies stamp set features a pair of spectacular floral stamps that are so big and sooooo much fun to color. I find that large-scale stamps are the most fun to color, because they give you the room to really work on enhancing those details that might be too small to notice on a smaller set. I created a pair of peony projects (say that three times fast!!) using the new Billowing Peonies stamps: a slimline card and a piece of wall art, both watercolored using my favorite Artists’ Watercolor 24 Pan Set, which is hands down my favorite coloring medium in the Altenew catalog. I’ve had my set for several years and use it more than any other Altenew coloring medium. I’ve barely made a dent in the pans, so it’s a fantastic, long-lasting investment! If you are looking for an economical and good quality watercolor set, I cannot recommend the Artists’ Watercolor 24 Pan Set highly enough.

I began my slimline card by heat embossing the large peony duo from Billowing Peonies on a piece of watercolor paper that I’d trimmed down to slimline size. Even though I knew that I wanted to die cut the finished watercolored image, I started with the card size so that I could better visualize the final layout of the card. (Tip: if you don’t have the Stampwheel or are still waiting for your Stampwheel to arrive, you can use the back of your MISTI for this huge stamp. Tape the base of your MISTI to your work surface, then tape your paper next to your MISTI on your work surface. Place your large stamp on your paper, then close the *back* of your lid for your stamp positioner over your stamp. This hack gives you a bit of extra room to use those really large scale stamps, at least until you can get your hands on a Stampwheel!) I heat embossed the beautiful peony image using pearlescent white embossing powder, which I find creates a lighter, less severe aesthetic than using black stamped/embossed lines.

After I had heat embossed my image, I taped the panel down to my watercolor board with Satin Masking Tape and covered the entire panel with clean water. I then dropped in some diluted pink, green, coral, and yellow watercolors from the Artists’ Watercolor 24 Pan Set, which bloomed together beautifully on the damp watercolor paper. The wet watercolor will work with the wet watercolor paper to allow the colors to meld together beautifully and create some extra colorful interest to your floral images.

After speeding up the drying time with my heat tool, I went back in with more concentrated color to watercolor the beautiful peony images, adding depth and dimension to the flowers. The base layer of mottled color helps to create some color variation, mimicking the color variation found in nature. No real-life peony is only one color, so don’t be afraid to add touches of extra color! After it was completely dry, I went in with the coordinating dies and cut the image out. Because I had started on a slimline card base, the finished die cut image will fit perfectly on another slimline card base without needing to do any trimming.

To create the textured card base, I trimmed down a white slimline card front from some white cardstock, then used the Dotted Swirls Debossing Cover Plate Die at the top and bottom of the card front. Because the Dotted Swirls plate only pierces the cardstock and doesn’t actually cut anything, you can use it easily with a large scale card front like this! Simply line up where your plate ends with the previously-cut image to create a continuous pattern. I popped up the die cut watercolored image with Instant Dimension Foam Tape.

For the greeting, I stamped one of the chunky sentiments from the Billowing Peonies stamp set using Razzleberry ink onto some white cardstock, then while the stamp was still in place, stamped directly over the top with embossing ink. I sprinkled more pearlescent white embossing powder over the stamped greeting and heated it up, creating a pearlescent pink sentiment. I backed it with some Dazzling Diamond glitter paper so that the sparkle peeked out from the top and bottom of the sentiment panel, then layered that over the center of my watercolored peony and added a few shimmering pink gems for sparkle!

My second project using the new Billowing Peonies stamps is more of a home decor piece. I initially planned on watercoloring the entirety of the peony image, then chopping it up to create multiple card fronts, but after I had finished it… I decided I didn’t want to chop up those hours of meticulous watercoloring into something that would probably be thrown in the garbage.

I started by stamping the entirety of the image onto a 7″x7″ panel of watercolor paper using no-line coloring ink. You can see just how massive this image is; it’s even hanging over the edge of the 7″x7″ watercolor paper! I wanted to create a very pale lavender, almost white, peony (which I don’t think exist in real life, but it’s my garden so who cares, right?) so I mixed up some bright blue and purple watercolor from the Artists’ Watercolor 24 Pan Set, diluting the color with quite a bit of clean water to make it very subtle, and began adding that pale lavender to the shadowed areas of the first peony. I worked my way around the peony, keeping the wet sections separate from each other to ensure that those edges stayed nice and crisp, using the sharp point of my paintbrush to clean up any rough edges.

I used the same technique with the pink peony, this time mixing up some of my favorite bright pink with some of the purple to create a lovely shade of vibrant mauve. After I had completed the main watercolor on my peonies, I pulled out some yellows, pinks, and greens from my paint pans and diluted them on my palette so that they were the subtlest of washes. I used these subtle washes to “glaze” the edges of my petals, which is basically adding a watercolor wash over the top of an area of completely dry watercoloring. It helps to add some interest and color variation to your flowers. This technique is especially noticeable on the lavender/white peony; the white highlights on this super pale peony are picking up reflections of color from the neighboring flower as well as the foliage. I encourage you to try this technique on your next watercolor project!

Once I had finished watercoloring the flowers, I mixed some deep green and lime green watercolor to add pigment to the foliage. I like to think of each half of each leaf as it’s own unique petal, which allows me to visualize giving it the shape and shadows in the same way that I would on flower petals clustered together. After my initial painting, I mixed some black paint into the hunter/lime mixture, then enhanced the shadows on the leaves tucked behind the top layer of foliage. I matted the finished watercolored piece with some plain black cardstock, then mounted it on a panel of 8″x8″ white cardstock. It will fit perfectly in an 8″x8″ frame! Something like this would make a lovely Mother’s Day gift. 🙂

Well, that’s all for my projects today. To celebrate their 9th Anniversary, Altenew is offering some wonderful special gifts with purchase!

  • 4/5/2023-4/6/2023: Enjoy FREE U.S. shipping with code HAPPY9TH or $9 OFF shipping on international orders over $29 with code ANNIV23 at checkout and receive a FREE brand-new Playful Wildflower 3D Embossing Folder ($8.99 value) on orders over $69.

Here’s the full hop list:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

It’s such an honor to be part of the Altenew Design Team. Working with beautiful flower stamps is the closest I will ever come to having a garden, and Altenew’s floral designs are truly unique and such a pleasure to color. Thank you so much for stopping by today, and happy 9th Anniversary to Altenew!

Altenew March 2023 Stamp/Die/Stencil & More Release Blog Hop #1 + Giveaway ($300 in Total Prizes!)

Hi there! Today, Altenew is hopping along to celebrate the release of their new March 2023 Collection! You can find the full hop list at the bottom of the post, but you can also start at the beginning at the Altenew Blog. I have two projects featuring some gorgeous cherry blossom inspiration today, so let’s get started with all of the details!

Both of my projects feature lots of beautiful texture, lots of gorgeous rose gold metallic accents, and lots and lots of pink. It’s my favorite, and I cannot get enough. I took my cues for my cards today from the new Stunning Sakura stamps, allowing bright pops of pink to be the star of my projects.

My first project features the fabulous new Everyday Sentiments Hot Foil Plate. These circular sentiments reminded me of the wax seals that are so popular right now, so after hot foiling the Hello sentiment using some Rose Gold Hot Foil, I die cut it with one of the Fine Rings: Circles dies, I began work on a bundle of flowers to “tie” with my “wax seal.”

I used the Itty Bitty Flowers dies with the Rose Petal Gradient Cardstock set, die cutting the branches from some crisp white cardstock. I wanted those bright pink blooms to really pop from the background, so keeping the branches white helps to keep the focus on the pink flowers. I adhered all of the flower components together using liquid adhesive, then adhered them to the white branches.

I used the new Wicker Texture 3D Embossing Folder with a panel of white cardstock to create this crazy-textured background. I love how the incredibly crisp embossing is still relatively subtle because of the simple, repeating pattern. I arranged my cherry blossom die cut on the card front, adhering it with some foam adhesive, then added the hot foiled “wax seal” over the bundle with a double layer of foam tape for extra height. For even more texture, I added a baby pink seam binding bow and some sparkling pink gems. This card is simple, but all of the different textural elements really help to make it interesting, I think!

My second card uses the beautiful Stunning Sakura stamps and dies with some shocking pink watercolor to keep things bright and bold! I began by heat embossing the Stunning Sakura bouquet all over an A2 panel of watercolor paper using Altenew’s Rose Gold Embossing Powder. I then used the new Fine Watercolor Brushes with my favorite Artists’ 24 Pan Watercolors to watercolor the blooms in a beautiful hot pink, keeping the foliage in the same color family by mixing in a touch of black to the bright pink (aptly named “Cherry Blossom”) to create a jewel-toned maroon. I die cut all of the finished watercolored blooms from my A2 panel, and because I had placed hanging off the edges of the panel, I knew precisely where to place them on the clean card front!

For the greeting, I hot foiled one of the greetings from the new Vertical Greetings hot foil + die bundle, again using Rose Gold Hot Foil from Altenew. I also die cut the Simply Friend die from some coordinating rose gold glitter cardstock. I adhered it to some heavyweight vellum with liquid adhesive, then used my sharp scissors to cut around the edge to create a shadow. This vellum shadow allows the greeting to stand out a bit from the busy background, where it might get lost amongst the coordinating rose gold embossing powder and bright pink blooms.

I adhered all of the watercolored cherry blossom die cuts to a panel of white linen cardstock from my stash using Instant Dimension Foam Tape. The warmth of the linen cardstock coordinates beautifully with the warmth of the creamy watercolor paper. I hate it when the whites don’t match! I adhered the hot foiled and glittery die cut greeting pieces directly over the top of the popped up flowers using a double layer of foam tape to help them stand out even more. I added a few iridescent pink gems for some sparkle and added texture.

Well, that’s all for my projects today! Now for some fun giveaway information:

$300 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a *$100 gift certificate to 1 lucky winner and a $20 gift certificate to 10 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 03/07/2023 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 11 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 03/09/2023.
**The winner of the $100 gift certificate will be chosen from comments left on the Altenew blog.**

Here’s the full hop list: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!

Art Supply Favorites-A Long List!

Hi there! So I’ve recently had some questions about what watercolor supplies I would recommend, so I thought I would put a post together sharing some of my favorite items in case you wanted to ask Santa for them for your stocking… 😉

I want to preface this post by saying that I am a firm believer in the statement that you get what you pay for. Sometimes the inexpensive items are okay, like when you’re dealing with store-brand food vs name brand, but with art supplies, I’ve definitely found a difference in quality when using the student grade options. Of course, this is not an inexpensive hobby to begin with, so watching for sales and using coupons is a great way to expand your collection of art supplies while also not compromising quality. I have been stamping for 13 years, watercoloring seriously for 6+ years, and so have been building up my collection gradually. I have been lucky to have been provided some of these supplies through my work with different companies, but the vast majority of these supplies have been purchased by me over time, watching for sales and with birthday money or Christmas gift cards. I only recommend supplies that I really think will provide great results, regardless of whether they’ve been purchased by me or if companies have generously sent them to me to try. This list is not at all intended to encourage you to make purchases that you don’t need; I only want to recommend my favorite supplies if you are planning to do some artsy shopping or want to ask for some art supplies for Christmas! 🙂

***I will be providing affiliate links where applicable. When you use these links, no extra cost is added to your purchase, and it helps me to support my blog and my family. This is my job, so any support that you give me by using my affiliate links is immensely appreciated!***

First up, watercolors.

Watercolors hold true to the idea that you get what you pay for. Student grade watercolors contain less pigment and more fillers in order to make them less expensive; thus, the student grade watercolors will require more paint in order to achieve better vibrancy. The artist grade watercolors are more expensive, but contain much higher ratio of pigment to fillers, so I find that they last longer than the student grade and give better results from the start. Over the course of my watercolor journey, I have found that saving the “good” supplies and using the less expensive supplies for practice is a waste of time and money, because the good supplies behave vastly differently to the less expensive, so your results between the student grade vs artist grade will be very inconsistent. If I had known this at the start, I would not have bothered with the student grade and instead focused on building my artist-grade collection (slowly, ha) rather than wasting the time and money on the less expensive products.

Pan Watercolors-Watercolors are one of those things that depend a lot on your personal preferences. If given the choice, I will choose to work with pan watercolors over watercolor markers, simply because I feel that I have better control over the amount of pigment and thus the intensity of the colors on my image. Artist watercolors also have better lightfast ratings, meaning that they will be less likely to fade over time. I have two artist-grade brands that I reach for over and over again: Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors (Blick|SSS) and Holbein Artist Watercolors (Blick).

I have watercolors from a wide variety of brands, and I have found the stunning variety of colors in both of these brands to be unmatched. The Daniel Smith paints use many natural pigments, so the color palettes tend to be a bit more muted and earth-toned, while the Holbein palette seems to be a bit brighter and cooler. I used the Daniel Smith watercolors on the holiday paintings in the photo above; the Holbein palette is pictured below. You can see the difference in overall tone and brightness in the photos!

Both of these brands offer watercolor sets, in which they have selected a variety of shades that offer the majority of the rainbow. I have been collecting these watercolors over the last several years, and while I do enjoy having a huge variety of shades at my disposal, these watercolor sets would certainly be sufficient for quite a lot of projects. It’s amazing what custom colors you can create by mixing colors in different intensities. Holbein offers a very affordable set of 18 colors (Blick), which could easily be customized by adding a few extra pinks, purples, and greens (because we know how much I love pink!). Daniel Smith offers several different watercolor sets that are great for beginners. I personally love the color palette in the Jean Haines Master Set of 10 (Blick), which includes some of my favorite shades. One of my favorite things about the Daniel Smith line is that you can also purchase Dot Cards (Blick) that have a small sample of each color, so that you can try each color out, find your favorites, and build your own custom palette! You would be amazed at how long those little dots of watercolor will last-totally worth the money! Once you find your favorites, you can build your custom palette by purchasing the individual watercolor tubes.

I also wanted to mention the Altenew Artists’ 24 Pan Watercolors (ALT|SSS). I have found that these pan watercolors are of excellent quality and at an extremely affordable price point. If you are looking to dip your toe into watercoloring but don’t know if you want to invest in the artist grade watercolor tubes, this is a marvelous, super economical set of 24 pan watercolors that have a gorgeous color palette and move beautifully. I have been able to create tons of beautiful paintings with my 24 pan set, with a wide variety of color palettes, because mixing and matching the colors is super easy! These watercolors frequently go on sale, and they are 100% worth the money. I have a class on the Altenew website (only $8.95 for 6 videos!) that delves into these watercolors, great for beginners! You can check out the class HERE.

Watercolor Markers– While I adore pan watercolors, I can also appreciate the ease and vibrance of watercolor markers. There are several different brands of watercolor marker available, but I have found that the Karin Brushmarker Pro (Blick|SSS) markers offer wonderful quality and a huge variety of colors. I have found that I get better results by scribbling the color onto a ceramic palette, then picking the color up with my damp paintbrush, rather than putting the marker directly to the paper. This provides more control for my style of watercolor.

Next up: Alcohol Markers.

OLO Markers (OLO) are relatively new to the art world, as they were just debuted this past winter at NAMTA. I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with these OLO markers over the last 8 months or so, and I have to say-I find them to be a wonderful addition to my work space. They have an incredible vibrance and blend super smoothly. I also really love the ease of selecting your blending colors; the color families are very clearly delineated and blend beautifully together, which takes the guesswork out of your color selection. They have 4 fluid ounces of ink in the barrel -nearly twice as much as other brands- and feature a unique ink delivery system that cuts down on the amount of ink wasted. Refilling them is extremely simple. I have a longer blog post with video detailing all of the unique qualities of these markers HERE. You can check them out HERE, and you will automatically receive a 10% discount when you shop using my personal link!

You can see the incredible vibrance of these markers in the photo above. I can’t wait for them to release even more colors!

Next up, paintbrushes and paper.

Watercolor Brushes-You cannot go wrong with Silver Black Velvet. I’ve tried tons of different brands of paintbrushes (don’t tell my hubby! Teehee.), and the Silver Black Velvet brushes win every time. The bristles release water very gradually, and they come to a nice crisp point giving you the ability to create really sharp edges for no-line watercoloring. I would recommend a Round Number 4 (Blick) or 6 (Blick), and a round number 8 (Blick) for large washes. If you only watercolor very small images, as many stamped images are fairly small and detailed, you might prefer the finely detailed point that a Round Number 4 brush provides. I know that these brushes are a little pricy to start, but again, you get what you pay for with watercolor supplies, and I do find that they last for quite a long time if you take care of them.

Watercolor paper– watercolor paper is a very personal choice. Your unique style of watercoloring may suit the features of one paper over another. Sometimes, it takes some experimentation to figure out which paper brand works best with your own personal style. That being said, I have always had good results with Arches cold press watercolor paper (Blick|SSS). Cold press paper has a textured side and a smooth(er) side, while hot press paper is very smooth, and I have found that texture to be an invaluable trait with my style of watercolor no matter the brand. The color moves beautifully, lifts and scrubs easily, and holds up to repeated layers of water and even embossing folders, without worrying about the fibers of the Arches cold press paper disintegrating.

You can see how well the Arches cold press holds up to a 3D embossing folder and some pretty intense watercoloring!

Alcohol Marker Cardstock– For alcohol marker coloring, no matter which brand, I have found that the Hammermill 100 lb cardstock (SSS) works wonderfully. The super smooth surface of the paper allows the colors to blend beautifully, and the weight is great for papercrafting.

Bonus: Metallic Watercolors.

If you like all things sparkly, as I do, you will love checking out the IUILE shop on Etsy. They feature handmade, unbelievably sparkly watercolor pans that add so much sparkle to your projects… it’s almost unreal. I use them for splattering backgrounds, for adding metallic sparkle to large brushed sentiments, and adding sparkly accents to alcohol marker pieces, as you can see in the Cinderella project above. They are such a fun little accent to add to your projects to help kick them up a notch!

I hope that you find this list helpful! I want to reiterate that these are my own personal preferences, and this is by no means an exhaustive list. I am by no means an expert, but I have done quite a lot of experimentation (and shopping, ha) so hopefully you can benefit from my artistic experimental trial-and-error over the last several years! If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me via email or DM on Instagram. I’m happy to help in any way that I can! Thanks so much for reading, if you’ve made it this far, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Altenew April 2022 Gardens Around the World Collection Release Blog Hop + Giveaway ($300 in total prizes)

Hi there! Altenew is releasing their new collection for April today, called Gardens Around the World! We are celebrating with a blog hop; you should have arrived here from Bridget Casey, and your next stop is Teresa Litchfield. I have some inspiration for you today using the beautiful new Castle Garden stamps and dies. Let’s get started with the details!

I began by stamping some of the gorgeous blooms from Castle Garden on some watercolor paper using embossing ink and adding some pearlescent white embossing powder. When I want to keep things light and bright, I like to use white embossing powder, and the pearlescent powder adds an element of elegance. I used some pretty purple and blue shades from the  Artists’ 24 Pan Watercolors to add some delicate, feminine color to the flowers. I especially love that hydrangea image- so dainty and pretty!

For this first card, I used the die cut watercolored hydrangea from the Castle Garden set as the focal point for my card. It reminded me of a little bud vase on a vanity in a lady’s bedroom from the Victorian era, with crystal perfume bottles and crocheted lace doilies, so I die cut a Floral Lace die from some white cardstock and snipped it apart into several pieces. I adhered the watercolored hydrangea die cut with  Instant Dimension Foam Tape, then arranged the lacy bits to be peeking out from behind the hydrangea. I adhered them with some dabs of liquid adhesive just at the base, to allow the edges to organically curl up off of the white card base.

I added a simple Thinking of You greeting from the Castle Garden stamp set, stamped in Tanzanite ink on a strip of white cardstock. I popped it up with some more foam adhesive and added a few iridescent white pearls to finish it off. Super simple, but very elegant and feminine!

For my second project, I used the beautiful corner image from Castle Garden, again watercolored in beautiful blues and violets. I wanted to let the floral image be the star of the show, so I created a simple background using the Leaf Frame die, cut from white cardstock and adhered to a white A2 card base using liquid adhesive to keep the dimension subtle.

I adhered the watercolored floral die cut using foam adhesive, then added another simple greeting from Castle Garden. Some more iridescent white pearls finished things off simply, but with a touch of shimmer and shine.

Well, that’s all for my projects today! Now for some fun giveaway information:

$300 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 2 lucky winners and a $25 gift certificate to 8 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 04/20/2022 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 10 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 04/22/2022.

Your next stop on the hop is Teresa Litchfield. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!