Altenew Build A Flower - Carnation

Hello out there in blogland, I hope you're all well and the crafters amongst you have been finding time to create and play? We had a fun filled weekend of teaching youngsters about robot making, visiting my adorable neice and nephews and I also managed to fit in some crafting and I'm full of ideas for some other projects that I've made a start on.

I've been waiting to get my hands on the Carnation Build-A-Flower set by Altenew since I first heard it was being released back in January, it took me a while to get hold of it, but when I did I began the process of making lots of flowers and leaves in a variety of colourways. I've used shades of Altenew inks for all the carnations that I've stamped so far, I love Altenew inks because they smooth out over as they dry making the colours more even. I have a very soft spot for carnations because they are my birth flower and because it was another close relative of the Caryophyllaceae (Dianthus) family the Clove Pink that first got my interested in flowers which led to a passion for herbs.

When I was about 6 my Nanna had a vase of clove pinks on her windowsill when I went to visit her, the scent was so heavenly I kept going to smell them, I was smitten, so much so I recall asking my Nanna if I could have the pretty flowers and she wrapped them in paper for me when I was going home. I kept them on my windowsill in my bedroom for as long as they lasted and after first finding out what they were, I then started to find out more about the plants that grew locally, I got interested in growing things and identifying flowers and my love of plants blossomed from then. Now everytime I smell the distinctive perfume of a clove pink or a carnation, it takes me back to my childhood and brings back lovely memories of my Nanna.

The Altenew carnations measure almost 7cm across and 5cm high, the die does leave a white border around the edge of the flower, but I've been using the lightest of the 3 colours of ink I stamp each flower with with a blending foam and colouring the white which I think makes the flower look a little more realistic.

If you have a stamping platform or a MISTI or similar stamping tool its easy to make lots of flowers at once. I cut pieces of card to just bigger than the die cut image will be and then stamp all the bases, switch to the next layer and repeat until all the flowers are complete. I've made lots of flowers and leaves so that I can create a variety of cards, the top card I made my own card blank using the largest die from the Tonic Studios 'Victorian Frame Layering Die Set'. The technique for doing this is so easy, and despite having seen other people do it, I've only recently started doing it myself.

My second card is a simple A6 card blank, layered with some pink card and a white piece that I ran through an embossing folder. I added a die cut white panel that I stamped with one of the sentiments that come with the Carnation set and added some Pink Champagne Nuvo Glitter Drops to finish off the design. I have more cards planned using the carnations, I want to make add some of the other flowers from other Altenew sets and make some floral wreath cards on homemade shaped card blanks. I can paper garden with this colourful and bright 'flowers' whilst I wait for Spring to come along. I wish that the flowers had the same heady fragrance as the real flowers, I'm going to having a play with fragrance oil and see if I can imbue any scent to the die cut flowers without messing up the ink. I'll keep you posted!

Altenew Build A Flower - Poinsettia

Back in April I raved about the Altenew Build A Flower stamp and die sets that the company began releasing then, in fact I did a post on the first set which was the Camellia Build A Flower and I haven't posted anything since on these fabulous collections. They've so far done 9 releases and of those I've purchased 5, I intend to buy 3 of the remaining 9, but the Coral Charm BAF just didn't sing to me so I'm not getting that one.

Amazingly though despite having bought 5 of these sets, prior to making these cards above I've only used the Camellia set, the rest are sat in my stuff to be used box! Something I intend to rectify over the next couple of weeks, as soon as the Xmas cards are done. By then I should get the latest release which is the Carnation BAF, the carnation being my birth month flower and also one of my favourite flowers.

When they began releasing the BAF collections I hoped that they would do a Christmas set and the Poinsettia was top of my list, but I wasn't sure they would as they had already released a poinsettia stamp.

Like all the other Altenew layering stamp sets the poinsettia is very easy to stamp, a job made even easier if you have a stamping platform. Because I wanted to make a batch of cards I cut several sheets of card so that I could stamp one image and rotate 90 degrees to stamp another and repeated this process on 3 pieces of card to give me 6 read images.

The process was repeated using green shades of ink to give me a batch of green leaves to use. For both the red and green images I used Altenew inks Red: Crimson, Velvet & Grapevine and Green: Frayed Leaf, Forest Glades and Evergreen, the yellow centre was stamped with a couple of Memento shades Dandelion and Toffee Crunch and I used Jet Black Altenew ink for the stamen tips.

I decided to give the outline a gold embossed treatment and finished off the flowers with some sparkle pen. Once I'd finished the images I started to put together the cards, I wanted to keep them fairly flat because of postage, so all I did was die cut the scalloped base and the stitched top panel from my Tonic Beautiful Day Sew Pretty set, I embossed the white stitched panel with a poinsettia embossing folder I got free last year with one of the card making magazines, although I can't remember which one now.

Next I randomly cut in to the green leaves and after placing the red flower I added the green leaves behind stuck direct to the embossed panel with Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive. I then added a coating of Clear Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen and attached the panel to my card base, I used gold metallic effect cards that came with matching envelopes that I got from 'The Works' in the January sales. Finally I added a "Warmest Wishes" sentiment in the same gold foil card I Cut the scalloped circle from using a Sue Wilson die and glued that direct to the front of the card.

The process was fast and before I knew it I had 6 cards ready to send to friends, with a few green leaf bits left over for another batch, I glued a few white panels inside the cards with a pre-stamped sentiment and they are now ready to write. I can see this set having a lot of use over the years, I've already started another batch and will add some of them to my charity card pile.

Altenew Build A Flower - Camellia

I'm not sure if its due to the herbaholic in me, but whatever the reason is, I think its obvious to note that I adore floral stamps and images. This makes me a big fan of Altenew who make some absolutely stunning floral stamps, many of which have matching dies.

I was thrilled to discover last month that they were introducing Altenew Build A Flower, a monthly set on floral dies and stamps that can only be bought as a set. The first flower to the collection is the Camellia a single bloom that measures approx 8.5 x 7.5cm in size and is stamped in 3 layers.

The set includes a triple leaf stamp again with 3 layers, in the cards I've created with the image I've done the top layer in a darker contrasting ink colour and also using gold embossing powder, I love both effects but think that the gold embossed card looks more regal and would be perfect for special occasion cards. Although I must admit to liking to add gold embossing and splashes of gold to lots of my projects.

The set also comes with 2 sentiments as can be seen on the Altenew product photo here and also on my other card images below. I've been a fan of Altenew now a year or more, I'd seen photos of the products prior to getting a free small rose and Altenew die stamp from Simply Cards & Papercraft last year. But I wasn't sure I'd be able to stamp the images accurately and line everything up.

As it turned out I wasn't 100% accurate, you can see some of the cards I created using the freebie here, but the beauty of these layering stamps is they are very forgiving, and if you don't get it spot on it doesn't matter, if nature things are not always picture perfect! I quickly ordered the Vintage Roses and Beautiful Day sets and have since acquired more Altenew stamp and die sets, even buying some none floral, because I love the quality of the stamps and the beautiful images.

I can see me getting lots of use out of each of the Build a Flower sets, flowers can be used to decorate cards for many occasions and if you use fabric paints, you can use the stamps to decorate fabrics, something I plan on doing in the not too distant future with a selection of archival inks. I've yet to make a card with more than one of the camellia images on, I think being a large bold flower you can get away with just 1 image which makes creating lots of cards a doddle.

I used my MISTI to stamp the images, to save having to keep moving the stamp, I cut some white card in to 9cm x 9cm pieces and worked through stamping all the base layers in one colour, then switching to the next colour and moving on to the second and third layers. Doing this means you only have to align the stamp once making it easier and quicker to stamp lots of the images in one go.

I used Altenew inks to stamp my images, not that I'm a fan girl or anything, I love the fact that Altenew inks come in cube sets that contain light, medium and dark shades of ink that contrast making them ideal for stamping layered images. I used the Red Cosmos and Green Fields ink cube sets for the red camellia card, and Rose Petal and Tropical Forest sets for the pink colour way and Tropical Forest again for the leaves on the peachy orange card and the Warm and Cozy ink cube set to create the orange camellia.

The cards themselves came together really quickly after I'd stamped and die cut the camellia's out, and I have lots more camellias ready to use on other cards. For the card in the main photo I used a card blank from my Maybe Someday box, when I was making the wedding invitations for my stepson, I embossed lots of patterns until I found the one I truly liked, those discarded cards with embossed patterns not right for the invites went in my MSD box for use at another point. I love that when I need something to cement an idea in place, I can dip in to that box and come up trumps.

The embossing folder I used on a 6" x 6" white card blank is by X-Cut and is called "Square Gilt Frame", I think it makes a stunning frame for a clean and simple card. I added the camellia on foam pads to give it some dimension and glued the 3 sets of leaves direct to the card, I finished the design off with a sentiment die cut from gold foiled card using one of the dies from the Paper Smooches Love and Cherish die set. For the other two cards I used some papers from a Wild Rose Studios paper pad called 'Peach Blossom' that I got free when I subscribed to a magazine a couple of years ago, the colours were perfect for the cards I wanted to create.

The stamped edged panel was created with one of my recent bargains found on Amazon, nesting die sets good quality at cheap prices. The postage stamp style set is known as a Square Wave Frame and cost me £3.99 with free postage, not bad for a set of 6 dies where the largest is 12cm x 12cm and the smallest 2cm x 2cm. They cut beautifully as well, and are very strong and sturdy. I have bought from two companies so far Demiawaking and CalistoUK, of the two I've bought mostly from Demiawaking, CalistoUK takes forever to get your items to you, but I could have just been unlucky. There are lots of sets available, I have to say that I've bough some of the expensive Avery Elle and My Favorite Things dies and these cheap one cut just as well.

That said on the waved border dies, one of the dies isn't cut properly so the edge is flawed, but you have to be looking for it to notice and for £2.99 for a set of 4 dies as opposed to £12 or more for a set of 3 similar dies by Lawn Fawn the saving is worth it, if it means that I have more money in my pocket to indulge my passion for florals. Like anything its buyer beware, not all of the dies are good quality, but if you read reviews and ask around you can weed out the good from the bad.

I'm already anticipating the next Build a Flower release which is a gorgeous large Aster image, this one comes with 4 sentiments, I can't wait to play with this beauty, and I'm really looking forward to what the next 10 months with bring in terms of floral images from one of my fav stamp and die companies.

All Occassion Roses

I mentioned in my previous post how I was a little bit of a rose addict, this upon reflection isn't really an exaggeration, says she sat wearing rose scented perfume, with a rose candle burning and a cat called Rosie sat on her lap all snug and comfy, after coming in from the garden checking what needs doing to all the rose bushes out there, me not Rosie lol! The only thing  I don't have yet are rose tinted spectacles, but there's time and I do need to make an opticians appointment this week lol! I love herbs and flowers and as roses count as herbs due to their myriad of medicinal, cosmetic and culinary uses they have become my favourite herb as well, I make wine and vinegar from the petals and lots of other rose infused products, like rose petal sugar for baking. If people are interested I'll share some recipes and history?

Back to card making, I needed some late night crafting therapy last week, I'm at that funny age that gets called the menopause and is often spoken about in whispers. I've been very lucky so far, and escaped with very few menopause symptoms, one issue I do have though is suffering from crazy sleep patterns, sometimes my body refuses to get tired until 4am in the morning which is an actual pain.

So instead of fretting about not sleeping, I've started stamping or colouring pre-stamped images ready for using on future projects. This level of stamping is enough to keep me occupied without making too much noise, so I don't keep Simon awake and it furnishes me with things to turn in to projects like in the first photo.

I'm using my MISTI stamping tool a lot more these days, I stamp several sheets at a time with a leaf then move it along and stamp more until the A5 sheet is full and I have several sheets of each image I want to die cut. Doing it this way saves a lot of lining up, once you have the first image in position then on the rest of the sheets the images will be in the exact same place.

I decided to make several sets of cards to sell, I say to sell but not to make a profit, I'm just covering the cost of materials, plus every set of cards sold I give £2 to my local Cats Protection. People have been asking to buy cards I make for a while and I've done a few commissions but so far I haven't sold cards.

The rose and leaves are from an Altenew stamp and die set called 'Beautiful day', I stamped each image using Altenew Crisp Ink cubes, they stamp a little splotchy but they even out as they dry to give wonderful results. I've collected so far 11 of the 15 sets of ink cubes that Altenew have released, if you're interested in which colours I used for any particular rose leave me a comment and I'll let you know.

In the image at the beginning of this post the photo shows a few cards where the outline of the stamp was done with Versamark ink and Gold embossing powder, but for these cards I decided to stamp the outline with black ink. I used 'Black Licorice' My Favorite Things Hybrid Ink, it gives lovely crisp images and I can use it with my Zig brush pens and the ink doesn't bleed.

The roses were added to the centre panels using 3D foam pads, regular readers of my blog will have noted that I once again have made use of 2 of the dies from the Tonic Studios Sew Pretty - Have A Beautiful Day Circle Frame. I've used it on a far few cards now, its so versatile. My sentiment banners were all made using the Hero Arts 'Ribbon Messages Stamp & Cut' set and were stamped with Black Onyx Versafine ink. I used pre-made card blanks with a scalloped edge the ones I used this time were 5" x 5" and come with envelopes.

Floral 80th Birthday Card Using Altenew Stamps

I've not been blogging about all the cards I've made which is a shame really, 2016 sort of span away from me more on that in a couple of weeks when I wind up this bizarre and incredible year. In the meantime I thought that I'd share some of the cards that I'm most proud of that I've made since May when I went blog silent.

In 2016 my love affair with stamps with matching dies began, it started with a free set of Altenew rose stamps and dies that came free with Simply Cards & Papercraft back in March and continued throughout the year, the latest set is a Newton's Nook set that I'll be playing with soon! I've collected several of the floral Altenew sets and a fair few cat combo's, some I haven't had time to play with yet but there is much crafting time coming up over the next few weeks I'm delighted to say.

The card that I'm sharing today was made back in June for my favourite auntie's 80th birthday, she's also my God Mother and taught me how to bake and create when I was a child, so I wanted to make her something special. To make it I combined two Altenew sets for the floral arrangement, the pink peonies were done using the 'Peony Bouquet' set and the rest of the flowers were stamped using the 'Beautiful Day' set. I didn't actually have the die set for the Peonies when I made this card, so I fussy cut them out which is why they have no border. I used a die from my Presscut Frames Ovals set for the easel card base which I cut from plain white cardstock and used a smaller size down to create the gold mirror card mats.

The lacy layers were cut from the same white card using two of the dies from my Spellbinders 'Elegant Ovals' set. I used the same gold mirror card for the sentiment and numbers that I used for the mats and used the Happy Birthday and Numbers dies from the Die'sire Essentials Only Words dies to create the sentiment.

The photo doesn't show the gold embossing very well on the flowers, in 2017 I need to work on my photography to enable me to catch my cards in a better light. Trust me though the gold embossing did look good, if I do say so myself and really helped make the finished card. I stamped the peonies using 3 shades of Memento ink Angel Pink (light), Rose Bud (medium) and Lilac Posies (dark). I waited for the stamping to be completely dry and then added the outline stamp in Versamark and sprinkled Cosmic Shimmer Detail Bright Gold embossing powder on and heat embossed the images before fussy cutting them out.

I used the same process to stamp the forget-me-nots and berried greenery from the 'Beautiful Day' set and painted the leaves and flowers with a variety of distress inks that I squished on a stamp block and then used a watercolour brush pen to apply the ink. I can't remember which colours I used though sadly, that will teach me to leave gaps between making a card and blogging about it, for 2017 I think I'll start a makes diary and make notes be them good or bad of what worked, what didn't and if there is anything I'd do differently etc, as well as note what inks/paints/papers I used.

The card was put together using Cosmic Shimmer glue which is fast becoming my go to glue for most of my projects, it dries quick and clear and is makes a super bond, so far nothing I've made with this glue has fallen apart! The sentiment and flowers were added to the card using foam pads to give the card more dimension.

My auntie loved the card, she called me to say how lovely it was, so I was really pleased, I always get nervous sending out things I've made, what I make isn't perfect, and I see the imperfections and assume others will as well, but most people it seems don't see the mistakes, or if they do they don't mention them. More from me soon, hope you have a lovely day whatever you're doing and your not getting bogged down with festive tasks and preperations!

Coming Up Roses

In my garden I have a heavenly host of fragrant rose bushes, I love rose scented things and one of my cats is even named Rosie after my favourite flower. So you can imagine that I got VERY excited when the freebie from Issue 149 of Simply Cards & Papercraft, was an absolutely fabulous and gorgeous rose layered stamp and die set from AlteNew. I have to say I've been subscribing to over 7 different card magazines for 18 months now Simply Cards included, and this latest freebie is so far THE best one I've received and it will be used an awful lot in the future.

I wanted the roses to be the main focus of the cards, so I kept it simple and on all of the cards I stamped the WOW De-Vine background stamp on the notelet cards in a tone on tone colour, aside from the black card where I embossed it with WOW glitter embossing powder in Magic Mauve. Two of the cards had the backgrounds stamp with pearlescent ink, which helps give them some added shimmer.

I tried different types of ink to stamp the roses, pigment inks give a more solid colouring to the roses, and the dye inks were splotchy, which works, but I prefer the solid colour. In the end I stamped the first layer with pigment ink, using Versacolor inks and the second and third layers I used Memento dye based inks in complimentary medium and dark tones of the Versacolor ink, mainly because I don't yet have many colours of pigment inks, all my inks so far are dye based. The leaves were all done in either shades of Memento or AlteNew dye inks.

My stamping on these cards and lining up of the layers isn't perfect, but nature isn't perfect and the finished roses look pretty, stamping is something I'm learning as a go along, every project I do teaches me something new, whether its what not to do, ways that work or discovering how to make the best of a mistake. I did find that stamping in 3 shades of pigment ink gave me a smudgy mess, although I'm not sure if that was because I didn't let the layers dry for long enough inbetween stamping the layers?!

A point to note, when you use the dies to cut out the stamped images, the dies leave a thin area of white around the image, now in nature roses don't have white lines around the edges (unless they are bred that way with some kind of linear variegation!), so I took a make-up sponge (or you could use a blending tool) and I coloured the white area with the bottom layer ink. You can see the rim clearly on the edge of the pink and purple roses above.

I was so pleased with the free stamp and die set that I bought the AlteNew Vintage Roses stamp set and some of their Crisp & Clear inks  - although they stamped splotchy when I used them, not very crisp, but that could have been due to the card stock I used, so will try again on different papers and card before I make a proper decision. I'm waiting for the Vintage Roses dies to come back in stock over at Seven Hills Crafts, when they do I'll be getting the dies as well.

I'm loving the layered look and there are lots of layered stamp sets coming out with matching dies, so I'll be adding some more to my stamp collection in the future, I particularly want the Peony Bouquet set from AlteNew and the Vintage Flowers set also by AlteNew. Hopefully there will be other layered stamp sets coming out, I'd like some autumn leaf ones and some festive ones as well. Layered stamping is very quick to do and is forgiving if you're not a brilliant stamper like me.

If you're interested in the sentiments I used they are all die cuts and are made by 3 different companies, the Best Wishes die is one of the new Xcut Mini dies, the Thanks die is from AlteNew, I got mine from Seven Hills Crafts as I did the final Hello die which is by Neat & Tangled. One of the things I want to do this year is get some more sentiment dies for a variety of occasions and add a scoring board and a paper trimmer that can handle 12 x 12 sheets, but that's another thing entirely.

I hope you've enjoyed looking at my rosie cards, I'm toying with the idea of making some rosie notelet cards in 6's or 12's to give to people for xmas this year, I may even have a go at stamping without die cutting to make the cards flat and easier to post. Although I think I may have to scent the cards with rose oil for added effect, something that I do to xmas cards, I infuse them with essential oils of pine and cinnamon and other festive fragrances, something I'll blog about in the future :) Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read my wibble, your visits are very much appreciated :)

UPDATE 29/04/2016 - FYI for anyone that doesn't have the stamps or can't get the hang of using them. There is a downloadable sheet of pre-printed flowers (two shades of pink) and leaves (two shades of green) based on the freebie Altenew set that came with Simply Cards & Papercraft recently, so you can print them off, cut them out and decoupage with them. Also works as a visual example of hot to stamp them. Not sure how long the download will remain there, but for now you can find it via the link below.

http://www.papercraftmagazines.com/downloads/item/644-simply-cards-papercraft-149-downloads