Altenew Exotic Garden Stamps/Dies/Stencils/Embossing Folders Collection Release Blog Hop + Giveaway

Today I have many colorful cards to share as part of the Altenew Exotic Garden Release Blog Hop. This is a spectacular release with so many beautiful stamps, dies, stencils, 3D embossing folders to choose from!

You should have arrived here from one of the most fabulous card makers I know; Aga, truly a hard act to follow and I am a little bit star struck.. 🤩  but let's jump right in.

Gingko trees are so beautiful and the Sweet Gingko Stamp Set  has some lovely branches and leaves. This is a layering set; the branches also stamp the detail layer of the the leaves and there is a solid layer for the leaves. 

For my first card I imagined the illusion of gingko leaves creating shadows in the sunlight so I stamped and over stamped the solid leaf stamps all over a white A2 white card base in all four inks in the Green Valley collection of Altenew Crisp Inks: Mountain Pine, Shadow Creek, Grass Field and Firefly. The resulting panel looks a bit like camouflage which is exactly what I intended. 

Before heat embossing the gold elements I made sure the panel was completely bone dry! I stamped "Merci" from the Carpe Diem set and the detail leaf layer in embossing ink and heat embossed with gold embossing powder. 

To add some dimension I die cut a rectangle from the stamped card base and mounted the resulting frame on a card blank and added the middle section using some Instant Dimension Foam Tape. This tape is the perfect height at 1.5 mm, just right!

I felt that these gingko branches could easily also pass as flowers - something Egyptian possibly - so I also stamped them in two pink colors of dye ink; Pinkalicious and Razzleberry on a white square (2.5 inch) piece of card stock, and added a sentiment that I heat embossed in navy blue.

I die cut a rectangle from navy card stock, about half an inch smaller than an A2 card and taped down strips of Cherry Blossom Slim Washi Tape Set. Then I mounted the card onto a standard American white A2 card blank. IMPOSSIBLE from the  Carpe Diem  set seemed a good choice for a sentiment for this card!

Next up is the Painted Rainbow stamp set which immediately made me want to stamp a rainbow of brush marks! Using a MISTI and moving the card stock an equal distance between each color ensures regular results. For my rainbow I used Midnight Violet, Azurite, Persian Blue, Parrot, Maple Yellow, Snapdragon and Heart Beat Crisp Inks.

To complete the card I stamped DONT QUIT from the Carpe Diem set in black pigment ink and glued the panel down on to a black card base.

For the next card I stamped several brush strokes in more masculine colors; Gray Denim, Heart Beat, Teal Cave, Cloudy Night and Snapdragon. Adding YAY! from the small Celebrate Stamp Set in black pigment ink.

This is the kind of stamping I love, selecting ink colors and composing something fresh! 

For a Swede like me, seeing the word Fika in a stamp set - Carpe Diem - is amazing, thank you Altenew!  To me it evokes friendship and complicity over coffee and cakes so I stamped just that using two stamps from the Cake Love set. I performed some stamp surgery to remove the explanatory text from the stamp - no big deal.

I feel the colors chosen for the Painted Rainbow set brushstrokes - Orange Burst, Grape Agate, Olive, Rocky Shore and Dusk Crisp Dye Inks - gives this card quite a modern feel.

A 3D embossing folder is probably one of the easiest and most impactful products to use on a card - it's dramatic and you truly do not need much else for a fabulous card.

For my first example, I used the Decorative Florals folder on a heavy, light pink card stock from my stash, then I added a little bit of Altenew Artist Alcohol Marker in a light green for the center and stamens of the flowers.

Lastly I added two sentiments in French from the Carpe Diem stamp set in black pigment ink. I actually cut away the English translation from these stamps, if I ever want to stamp the full sentiment I can piece them back together. The panel was mounted to a black card base.

For my last card today I used another of the amazing 3D Embossing folders, this one is called Banana Leaves. I inked up  the raised sections of the embossing folder with Parrot  dye ink and ran through the die cutting machine using heavy white card stock. I had to re-ink and run it through twice to get good coverage. The effect is stunning, and yet so quick!

I stamped hello from the Sweet Ginko stamp set in black pigment ink and finished the card by gluing to a black card base.

This is truly a fabulous release and I have many more card ideas and projects in my head - I'll get to work on these and will be back soon with more to share, so please come back to my blog for new looks soon!

To celebrate the release, Altenew is giving away $300 in total prizes - 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 by May 10, 2021 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 10 random winners from all the comments and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on May 12, 2021. Good luck to you!

Now it's time to hop on to Amber's blog, enjoy her fabulous creativity!

Blog Hop Order:

Altenew Card Blog

Jennifer McGuire

Jaycee Gaspar

Amanda Baldwin

Nicole Watt

Vicky Papaioannu

Emily Midgett

Carol Hintermeier

Norine Borys

Erin Thompson

Agnieszka Malyszek - you should have come from here

Helen Kalb - you are here

Amber Rain Davis - your next stop

Jenny Colacicco

Svitlana Shayevich

Erum Tasneem

Kymona Tracey

Keren Baker

Virginia Lu

LauraJane

Lilith Eeckels

Linda Westfall

Maryam Perez

Michelle Short

Therese Calvird

Verity Biddlecombe

Tania Ahmed

Sandhya Iver

Reiko Tsuchida

Seeka

Nathalie DeSousa

Teresa Lichfield

Laurie Willison

Ardyth Percy-Robb

Tina Smith

Tricia Schaden

Joylita Dsouza

Nandini Karmakar

I hope to see you here again soon!

Hugs,

Helen

Disclosure: Please note that I do not participate in any affiliate programs and do not receive any payment for producing this or any other blog post. I only post about products I love and provide product links purely for the convenience of my readers. To participate in this release hop I did receive several products from Altenew to use on this post:

Sweet Gingko Stamp Set

Cherry Blossom Slim Washi Tape Set

Carpe Diem Stamp Set

Painted Rainbow Stamp Set

Banana Leaves 3D Embossing Folder

Decorative Florals 3D Embossing Folder

All other products (paper, card stock, inks, stamps etc) were personally purchased by me.