October 2021

“K” is for…..Karen! I was inspired to make an initial notecard for Altenew’s “Alphabet Name Game” Blog Hop. I love to make my own paper so I started by coming up with a color palette. I wanted a bright happy card so I selected aqua, green, yellow, pink and tangerine.

Ink Smooshing Technique

I started by making three inked panels. Here was my technique:

I liberally inked an 6×6″ acrylic block with Altenew Inks. I wanted an ombre gradient look so went in rows across the block.
I very liberally sprayed the inked block with water
“Smooshed” the block onto a piece of watercolor paper
Weighted the ink/block with a book for 5 minutes
Uncovered. If the ink pooled, I dabbed with a paper towel.
I made a “second generation” panel for the background by taking a piece of Bristol Cardstock and soaking up the excess ink on my work space.

Panel one and the background were made with Seashore Mini Ink Cube Set (Lagoon & Volcano Lake), Rainbow Prism Mini Ink Cube Set (Parrot & Warm Sunshine). Panel two was Coral Berry and Orange Cream.

I let the panels dry overnight and then I started my die-cutting. The “K” is from Altenew’s Mega Alphabet Collection and the grid background uses Altenew’s GardenTrellis Cover die, which is a favorite of mine.

Altenew Garden Trellis Cover Die + Ink Smooshing Technique.

Here is a closeup of the card.

Prizes:

$200 in total prizes! Altenew is giving away a $35 gift certificate to 2 lucky winners and a $20 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 10/09/2021 for a chance to win.

There’s MORE! What’s a hop without YOU?! We have included an Inlinkz at the Altenew blog for you to enter your gorgeous Altenew “Alphabet Name Game” creations. We will pick 2 of our favorite handmade creations from those who joined the linky party and they will each receive a $15 Altenew gift certificate!

Altenew will draw 7 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 10/11/2021.

Hop list:

Michelle Ochoa Murray

Irina Fonina

Penny Pynnonen

Anna Patricia Mahtani

Karen Brown (You made it to the end!)

Thanks for stopping by!

Karen

Navy and Gold Sympathy Cards

Navy and Gold is such a classic color combination and I thought it would work really well for my pair of sympathy cards. I started by diecutting the border overlay from navy cardstock. I wanted a shaped card so I made a 5 x 7″ white cardbase and then I taped the top of the outline die just above the fold of the card so the fold would stay intact.

Navy and Gold color combination for elegant shaped sympathy cards.

Next, using the the border die again, I die cut the filigree from Brush Gold Metallic Cardstock. I think the brush gold is very elegant and I like that it is not as shiny as mirror gold. I carefully saved the small die-cuts so that I could do a partial inlay and I saved the gold border overlay for card #2. I then die cut the middle oval filigree from navy and the oval outline from Brush Gold Metalic Cardstock.

Next, I assembled my card using liquid glue and added four inlay pieces to each corner. I gold embossed a sentiment and mounted it using foam tape.

For card #2 I used the gold die-cut filigree over a navy base with cream accents.

Amazing Paper Grace October 2021 Die of the Month

I also cut floral accent pieces from the dies included in this months kit. The two cream leafy branches in the bottom corners were the only components that aren’t included in the kit and they are from Amazing Grace’s Petite Floral Potpourri.