Hello! Today I’d like to share with you some brand new products I designed with Altenew. If you love traveling and having fun outdoors adventures then these products will be perfect for you!
I was really excited and inspired with this release so I created a lot of cards. Some of them are super quick and simple and you can put them together in less than 5 minutes. Some others take a bit more time to add some fine details and explore fun techniques. I’m sure you’ll find some inspiration that works for your crafting style.
Simple Rainbows
Let’s start with some simple colorful rainbow cards. These are perfect to brighten someone’s day and they go perfectly with any sentiment.
- Die-cut each curve of the Color Bands Die Set from a different color of cardstock.
- If you want to make multiple cards at once this is a great die set. Just die-cut all curves from multiple colors of cardstock and assemble different color combinations later.
- You can create the rainbow with or without the small center piece.
- Finish your card with a sentiment. In these cards, I used a sentiment from the Simply the Best Stamp Set
Multiple Rainbows
If you want to take it up a notch you can create card designs featuring multiple rainbows (or you can just think about them as color curves).
- Die-cut each curve of the Color Bands Die Set from a different color of cardstock.
- If you want to make multiple cards at once this is a great die set. Just die-cut all curves from multiple colors of cardstock and assemble different color combinations later.
- To create the card on the left:
- Put together two rainbows using the same colors.
- Place them in a mirrored position on the card leaving some space between them for your sentiment.
- To create the card on the right:
- Put together four sets of rainbows in different color combinations.
- Place them around the edges of your card base leaving some space for your sentiment.
In these cards, I used sentiments from the Simply the Best Stamp Set.
Rainbow Curves
If you still have leftover die-cut pieces after creating the previous cards you can try one of these designs.
To create the card on the left:
- Gather any leftover pieces or die-cut a variety of colors and shapes from the Color Bands Die Set.
- If you die-cut too many colors you might want to limit your palette to 6-7 colors to make sure they look well together.
- Place the colorful curves randomly on your card, overlapping some of them.
- Stamp your sentiment on a piece of colored cardstock and place it on top of your colorful card base.
To create the card on the right:
- Gather any leftover pieces or die-cut a variety of colors and shapes from the Color Bands Die Set.
- If you die-cut too many colors you might want to limit your palette to 5-6 colors to make sure they look well together.
- Place the colorful curves around the edges of your card base creating a tangled frame.
- Make sure to overlap your curves.
- Stamp your sentiment in the middle.
In these cards, I used sentiments from the Simply the Best Stamp Set.
Bird Lovers
If you like birds then you are going to love Feathered Friends Die Set. It includes three different sizes of birds with cut details that add a lot of dimension and interest to your die-cuts. This is a perfect set to use with colorful pattern paper.
You can arrange your die-cut birds in fun different compositions to create endless cards.
In my examples I used the following:
- Paper Packs: Rainbow Blots, Dreamy Sunset, Alluring Blooms, Enchanting Washes.
- Sentiments: Anywhere with You Stamp Set, Wavy Roses Stamp Set.
Quick & Easy Boutique Cards
Speaking of pattern paper, the new Rainbow Blots 6×6 Paper Pack I designed in this release is perfect for quick and simple cards. The patterns are really eye-catching and they can easily be the focus of your card.
Paired with one of the mini sentiment sets Anywhere with You, Say Yes or Greatest Adventure, you have a very quick and beautiful card.
2 Cards, 1 Paper
The things you can do with a paper pack are endless but I wanted to show you another very quick and easy example. I created two cards from a single sheet of paper!
- Pick a pattern paper you love. For my examples, I’m using a sheet from the Rainbow Blots 6×6 Paper Pack.
- Cut the paper approximately at 1/3.
- To create the card on the left:
- Use the larger piece and cut it at approximately 1/3 again.
- Adhere the two pieces on your card base, leaving a gap between them to stamp your sentiment.
- The sentiment I used here is from the Playful Blooms Stamp Set.
- To create the card on the right:
- Use the smaller piece from your first cut and place it at the bottom half of your card.
- To give it a bit more character, add a thin strip of cardstock in a coordinating color at around 1/3 distance from the top.
- Finish your card with a lovely sentiment. The sentiment I used here is from the Wavy Roses Stamp Set.
Scene Building
I really enjoy scene building dies, especially when they include simple shapes that work well with pattern paper. For this card I used the Mountain Builder Die Set and the Anywhere with You Stamp Set to create a simple mountain scene.
This will look amazing with any paper you choose but if you want to take the design a step further you can choose some beautiful painterly pattern paper to give more depth and interest to the design.
For my card, I used papers from the Enchanting Washes 6×6 Paper Pack.
Centerpiece Sentiment
Another type of product I absolutely love is centerpiece sentiment dies. I especially love it when they include the shadow border that cuts around the delicate words. That’s why I designed the Reach for the Stars Die Set.
It’s really great when a sentiments fills the whole card base like that cause you can easily create really eye-catching projects. Large sentiment dies like this also work great with pattern paper and that’s what I used for my cards here.
To create the card on the left:
- Pick a piece of pattern paper (or cardstock) for your base.
- Die-cut the outline of the sentiment (keep the inner piece cause we’ll use it in the next card).
- Die-cut both the outline and the words from different pieces of pattern paper/cardstock. You want to chose papers with a bit of contrast so each piece stands out. If you use pattern paper, pick a soft pattern without many distracting details (especially for the words dies).
- Adhere the words die-cut on top of the outline and then inlay the piece on your cardbase.
- Optional: Add some gold ink splatters around.
- The paper packs I used on this card are: Dreamy Sunset and Enjoy the Ride.
To create the card on the right:
- Die-cut both the outline and the words from different pieces of pattern paper/cardstock. You want to chose papers with a bit of contrast so each piece stands out. If you use pattern paper, pick a soft pattern without many distracting details (especially for the words dies).
- Adhere the words die-cut on top of the outline.
- Get the piece you cut out of the card base in the first card and adhere it behind the die-cut sentiment you just put together. Offset the second outline cut a bit to the left to make it look like a drop shadow.
- Pop everything on foam dots and add it to your card base.
- Optional: Add some silver and pink ink splatters around.
- The paper packs I used on this card are: Enjoy the Ride, Alluring Blooms and Wildflower.
Gradient Ink Blending
Last but not least, I created a few cards using a stencil set I designed in this release, Polka Dot Buds. What I love the most about this stencil set is that you can ignore the leaves and you got yourself a great polka dot stencil that you can use for a subtle background on any project.
The stencil design looks great with some simple ink blending but if you want to take it a step further you can try some gradients. I really love using this technique with all sorts of layering/builder stencils.
My favorite approach is to reverse the light and dark colors for each layer. For example, I used a darker color at the bottom for the leaves layer and a lighter one at the top. When I went in with the flower buds, I did the opposite. I used a lighter color at the bottom and a darker one at the top. This adds contrast to the design and makes it look even more interesting and exciting.
Detailed Blending
Another technique I love when it comes to stencils is detailed blending. To do this you need some sort of small blending brush like the Altenew Detailed Blending Brushes. If you don’t have a small blending brush like that, you can definitely try using a paint brush or a makeup brush instead.
- First I go in with the lightest color and add it across the whole stencil with a large blending brush.
- Then I get the detailed blending brush and I start adding a bit of shading with darker colors in some areas. In most cases I only go with one or two darker colors for the details cause the inks blend nicely on their own creating soft blended edges.
I really loved the finished look of this panel so I decided to created two cards out of it. I cut out a circle out of if and then placed a die cut sentiment over the opening.
For the second card, I took the cut-out circle and placed it on top of a larger circle I cut out of dark navy cardstock. I finished the card with a simple sentiment strip and a few ink splatters.
Products Used
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I know these were a lot of cards, but there are even more stunning projects created by the other designers participating in the release blog hop. You can start at the very beginning of the hop here or if you just came from Tania Ahmed‘s blog you can continue to the next stop: Vicki Finger.
Giveaway Prizes:
$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 06/09/2021 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 06/11/2021.
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