Altenew Educators "Giving Thanks" Blog Hop and Linky Party + Giveaway

Today I am excited to be part of the Giving Thanks Blog Hop where we Altenew Educators show some of the cards we have been making to say thank you to all those who have worked and still are working hard to keep us all safe on the front lines during the Covid19 pandemic.

If you have come from Rosie Neustaedter's blog you are on the right track, you can always start at the beginning of the hop on the Altenew Card Blog. For a full list of participating blogs, scroll to the bottom of this post.

This is no ordinary hop! We want you to join in the fun as well. There is a Linky Party going on at the Altenew Card Blog. All you have to do is link up your creations based on the theme of the hop,, "Giving Thanks" and mention that you are taking part in the Altenew Educators Blog Hop and Linky Party. So what are you waiting for?

EDITED FOR PRIZE WINNER!

Congratulations to Suzanne Russel who has been chosen by Altenew as a winner from my blog.

Please send an email at winner@altenew.com with the subject line “June 2020 Giving Thanks to Heroes Blog Hop Giveaway Winner from Helen Kalb's blog” by 06/30/2020 so they can set you up with your prize. 

Because we are early summer in the Northern hemisphere I wanted to use the Wildflower Garden stamp and die set for some of my cards today. This is a beautiful and versatile set and here are a couple of very different ways to use it. For another card using this set and a completely different look, see this post: Pick Me!

My first cards were made with a very old but fun technique that gives almost a hand pressed flower quality to the card - stamping with water based markers!

Put your individual stamps onto acrylic blocks, scribble one or two water based marker colors directly on to the stamp, mist once with a spray bottle and stamp down on your water color paper. You can do second and even third generation stamping too. I started with the stems and leaves and added the flower heads afterwards. The awesome sentiment is from the Stone Mosaic set.

I stamped up a big sheet of wildflowers and then cut the best parts down to just under A2 using a nested rectangles die set and mounted the cards on color card bases.

The sentiment is from Label Love - French. Did you know you can get the Label Love set in several languages including Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, German?

Now for a complete different look using the same stamp set; Wildflower Garden. 
Start by die cutting the flower shapes using the coordinating dies out of blue, pink and white cards stocks, then stamp the flowers in blue, red and yellow inks. Die cut a circle from green paper and assemble the flowers into a lovely, summery bouquet and mount on a square card base. 
Quite often I don't put sentiments on my cards just because I like the clean look.

After the flowers I wanted to go for a completely different style, I have a few Altenew set that have fun graphic elements, one of my favorites is the Stone Mosaic set which I used on the next few cards.

This fantastic set lets you create a a slate of polished stone in any color combo you like using one, two, three or four layers.

For the first card I used three layers and stamped them in oranges and blues, then I mounted the image on a standard A2 sized card base in orange and added the U Rock sentiment from Label Love. Clean, simple, colorful and cool! For another graphic card see this post: Trigonometry

We have had really bad weather here in Berlin for the past few days so my picture is not excellent but I really wanted you to see the shiny embossing on my card below.

For this one I gold embossed one of the layers in Rose Gold embossing powder and stamped two more layers in Grass Green and Pink Pearl. You can really play with different color combos with this set using all the lovely colors of Altenew Crisp Inks. The label is again from Label Love - French where I cut the sentiment apart for it to read "for you", it was stamped in Grass Green and then over stamped in clear embossing ink to be shiny but still the same color green as the green on the card.

Then I took one of the Stone Mosaic images and used it as a background for a flower - I am telling you, this is a genius set and it has some great sentiments as well!

All four layers for the background were stamped in grays, pink and green to match my peony from the Hope set. This is a must have set that lines up easily and can be stamped in so many color combos. I wanted mine to look like the gorgeous bouquet in my living room.

To stamp the flower I used the same Pink Diamond ink for all layers and stamped only the last three layers, so not the first solid one - that made for a pale pink peony.

Then I made a couple of other little square cards without sentiments and just some blooms. For the one with a green background I used Morning Frost and Pink Diamond inks to stamp a white flower. 

Here is another idea for using the Hope set in bright reds: Sign me up!

For your information I have linked all the products I have used to the Altenew shop, please note that I do not receive a commission from Altenew, this is purely a service to you, my blog readers.

Prizes:

Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 3 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog by 6/17/2020 for a chance to win.

We'll also draw a winner to receive a $15 Altenew gift certificate from the comments left on each designer's blog on the blog hop list below. All winners will be announced on the Altenew Card Blog on 6/21/2020.

There's MORE! We will pick 2 of our favorite handmade creations from those who joined the linky party and they will also receive a $15 Altenew gift certificate.

Special offer:

FREE US shipping with code HAPPY6T or $5 OFF international shipping with code SHOPPING6T at checkout on orders over $29. Offer valid from 6/10/2020 at 12:01 EDT through 6/11/2020 at 11:59 pm EDT. Shop HERE! Not valid on prior purchases. Cannot be combined with other promo codes. Not valid on Altenew Academy Classes and Virtual Workshops.

I hope you will visit each of the talented Altenew Educator's blogs and leave some love for my friends!

Altenew Card Blog

Nenette S. Madero

Christine Pennington

Vicki Finger

Amy Hill

Nandini Karmakar

Nancy McClelland

Neha Agrawal

Terri Marie Koszler

Rosie Neustaedter

you are here - Helen Kalb - you are here

this is where you go next: Laurel Beard

Maryam Sharara

Teri Stokes

Nicole Watt

Erin Thompson

Irinia Fonina

Amber Rain Davis

Patty Mello

Virginia Lu