
Good morning! Today, the folks at Altenew are hopping along to celebrate the newest Marvelous Monthly release for March, 2023! These monthly subscription series are always such fun and a great value, providing so many different elements to create a huge variety of stunning cards. I have two cards to share with you today, featuring the new Build-A-Garden: Dancing Poppies and Craft Your Life Project Kit: Delicate Garden. Here’s a peek at the two different sets that I’ll be using today:


I love that you receive so many different elements in each kit so that you can mix and match, depending on what kind of coloring medium (or none at all!) that you feel like using that day! If you are loving these kits as much as I am, you can always SUBSCRIBE to be sure that you receive a kit each month (and at a discount!). Let’s get started on the details for my projects today!

I love the juxtaposition of crisp black accents and softly colored flowers, and it was this color combination that I had in mind when creating both of these cards. I used Spicy Yogurt cardstock with coral, peach, and mint with intense black accents to create this pair of cards!

For my first card, I stamped the images from Dancing Poppies onto some watercolor paper using Obsidian pigment ink, then clear embossed over the top, which helps to add a level of crispness to the stamping. I used the Artists’ 24 Pan Watercolor Set to add some soft pinky coral to the poppy flowers and some pale minty green to the leaves. I used the one-and-done die to die cut all of the watercolored flowers.

For the background, I wanted to highlight those shiny black lines and dramatic black centers on the watercolored poppies, so I layered together the Rattan Stripes Cover Die twice from some black cardstock, then the Garden Trellis cover plate cut once from black cardstock, to create this unique, super textured, layered background. I adhered all three pieces to a Spicy Yogurt cardstock base using liquid adhesive.

For the greeting, I die cut the “thanks” Sweet Sentiment dies from black and Spicy Yogurt cardstock to coordinate nicely with the creamy background and the watercolor paper itself. I arranged the flowers on my rattan card front, popping them up with Instant Dimension Foam Tape, then added the greeting at the bottom. The final step was to add some gems for sparkle!

My second project features the stunning new Craft Your Life Project Kit: Delicate Garden. I began by stamping all of the floral images in the stamp set using Obsidian pigment ink, then clear embossed over the top to again create those super crisp black lines on my white cardstock. I used the coordinating stencils included in the kit to do some subtle, soft ink blending, creating peachy and minty bouquets using Strawberry, Pink Pearl, Coral Bliss, and Coral Berry inks for the flowers, and Green Meadows inks for the foliage. I die cut all of the blended flowers using the coordinating dies, included with the kit.

I loved each of the floral bouquets so much that I couldn’t bear to leave one off of the card, so I expanded my canvas and created a slimline card front to display them all properly! I created the base from more Spicy Yogurt cardstock, then die cut a large Nesting Slim Labels panel, upon which I stamped some of the floral bouquets again using Obsidian pigment ink, then clear embossed over the top. I popped up the embossed label die cut on the slimline card front using some more Instant Dimension Foam Tape, then arranged the blended florals in a pretty swag down the front of the card. I adhered the bouquet with more foam tape, to create a double layer of foam tape along the edges of the die cut. So much height!

I heat embossed the greetings from the Delicate Garden using the Obsidian and clear embossing powder combination, then fussy cut them with my sharp scissors. I popped those images up from the card front using yet another layer of foam tape, for a grand total of three layers of foam tape in the center of the card! Definitely a card to be hand delivered or placed inside a package, ha. Finally, I added a few black crystals for one last pop of black and touch of sparkle.
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 FULL RELEASE BUNDLE to 1 grand prize winner and a $25 gift certificate to 4 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by March 23, 2023 for a chance to win.Altenew will draw 5 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on March 24, 2023. *The grand prize winner will be chosen from comments left on the Altenew Card Blog.
Here’s the full hop list:
Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!
