Good morning, friends! The new May release for Altenew’s Marvelous Monthly series is here, and the new subscription products are just so beautiful! We’re hopping along to celebrate and inspire you today. You should have arrived here from Agnieszka, and your next stop is Virginia. You can also see the full hop list at the bottom of the post! We have some beautiful new stamps, dies, annnnnd… new colors in the Fresh Dye Ink line! Eeep! I have two projects to share with you today, so let’s get started with the details.
My first project features the luscious new Craft-A-Flower: Fragrant Peony. First, I began by die cutting the layers for the flower itself using the Craft-A-Flower: Fragrant Peony dies and plain white cardstock. Before I assembled the layers, I used a small blending tool to blend Rouge ink very lightly in the center of the peony, concentrating the color a bit more heavily towards the center of each layer and tapering off as I radiated out from the center of the flower, leaving the ends of the petals almost completely white. I also die cut the center of the flower from some bright yellow cardstock, toning it down by blending some Pumpkin Pie ink around the edges, which helps to highlight the beautiful texture embossed on the die cut.
Even when the peonies are crisp and pale and almost bleached, the foliage on the peony bushes remain a vibrant, verdant green, so I die cut my foliage dies from some deep, bottle green cardstock. Because I had two blooms, I wanted to make sure that I had an odd number of floral elements by cutting three different leaves. (An odd number of elements is more visually pleasing-an unwritten rule of design! I try to follow that rule when designing and adding embellishments.)
To allow my very lightly-colored peony blooms to stand out, I decided to keep my card base a bright, crisp white, adding some textural interest with white die cuts. I die cut two Leaf Frame Cover Dies from some white cardstock and layered them together to create a little extra height on my background, making the texture a bit more visible. I arranged my peony die cuts in a cluster and adhered them with foam adhesive, then nestled a “hugs” dimensional die cut greeting in amongst the foliage, cut three times from white cardstock using the Simple Greetings die set. The texture on this card is so fun, while still remaining that crisp, bright white!
My second project features the beautiful ink colors in the Red Sunset Crisp Dye Inks as the focal point. I began by blending an ombré gradient background using all four colors in the Red Sunset set, working from light to dark. I did blend two layers of ink to make sure that the blend was seamless and the colors were really saturated throughout the background.
Once I had my background completely blended and allowed a couple of minutes to dry, I used the Whimsical Bouquet embossing folder to add some beautiful 3D texture to the blended background. I also ran a white pigment ink pad over the top of the raised areas to help enhance the texture even further. The springy foam on the pigment ink pad combined with a light touch helps keep the white ink on only the raised areas. I also splattered some metallic watercolor from the Metallic Watercolor 14 Pan set to add some metallic texture to the background.
I didn’t want to pull attention too far from the vibrant background, so I kept the sentiment and accents simple. I die cut the Fine Frames Cover Die from some Brushed Rose Metallic Cardstock, then added two frames, one thick and one thin, on my blended card front. I also die cut a greeting using the Circled Greetings: Thanks die, cut from some glittery rose gold foam for extra dimension. Finally, I added a few opalescent gems for one last touch of texture!
Well, that’s all for my projects today, and 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 05/24/2023 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 05/26/2023.
*The winners of the $50 gift certificate will be chosen from comments left on the Altenew blog.
~~Craft Your Life Project Kit updates~~
Please note: The Craft Your Life Project Kit will no longer be released to the public in the Altenew store, not like other subscription products. It will only be available via the Ultimate Subscription Plan or Craft Your Life Project Kit Monthly Subscription Plan.
If you find yourself loving the subscription products more and more each month, you can check out the Ultimate Subscription Plan, which automatically sends you *all* of the subscription products each month at an awesome discount! You can also subscribe to the individual subscription products to receive just the pieces that you want, but the discount isn’t quite as awesome as with the Ultimate Subscription Plan.
Here’s the full hop list:
Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!
