Hello friends and welcome to the blog hop for the November release of the Altenew Paint-A-Flower series – this month, the Spider Mum! (If you’d like to check out the option to subscribe to this monthly stamp release, click here). Also being released today is a fun new product that you may agree with me, is an absolute crafting necessity! No matter what kind of crafts you do! Scroll to the end for that fun surprise!
You should be arriving here from the beginning of the blog hop at the Altenew Card Blog, and I hope you’ll carry on from here for even more amazing inspiration. At the end of this post you’ll find a complete hop list for your guide.
Today’s card uses a fun technique with the recently released Woodless Watercolor Pencils from Altenew. Because of that, I’m working on watercolor paper, and since I was stamping, and didn’t plan to do a lot of actual painting I used the smoother back side of the paper.
Because the pencils don’t have a wood sheath taking up the bulk of the pencil, they have a large tip and if you lay the pencil sideways against the stamp, you can actually use the tip of the pencil to color on the stamp! Which is what I did here.
The trick is to dip the pencil tip into your water jar (not to long or it will get too soft), then rub it over the portion of the stamp that you want to be that color. For example, I rubbed a couple of green pencils and the turquoise one over the leaf and stem outlines, and a few shades of red, pink and yellow over the mum. You need to stamp immediately after “coloring” the stamp, before the pigment dries on the stamp, and then give the watercolor paper a quick spritz of water. The result is a loose, artsy, indistinct outline with some of the color filling in the spaces.
Working with opposite colors on the color wheel means they will turn a muddy shade of brown if they mix, so I first colored the blooms and let them dry before moving on to the leaves. In the case of the leaves, because I wanted an even looser effect than the bloom, I colored on the stamp with the pencils, then spritzed the stamp and stamped down on the paper. I repeated these steps until I was happy with every area of the stamped image.
Once the paint was all dry, I used the (also recently released) Fine Liner pens to add back some “artsy” definition to the outlines of the leaves and stem and for contrast, left the petals untouched except for the bud in the center.
I stamped one of the 10-plus sentiments included in the PAF: Spider Mums stamp set, with permanent black ink, trimmed the watercolor panel smaller than A2 sized and used a ruler and a paper piercing tool to poke dots around the edge of the card panel. Then a few clear enamel “dew drops” finish the card.
Altenew is also releasing their new craft apron today – an item that checks both the beautiful and necessary boxes!
It has pockets in front like every self-respecting craft apron should, and a screen printed design that screams Altenew style! (I don’t think I’m wrong about that!)
Giveaway Prizes:
To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 2 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog by 11/28/2020 for a chance to win. We’ll also draw a winner to receive a $15 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 Winners Page on 11/30/2020.
Your next stop on the hop is Laura Jane’s blog. The complete hop list follows:
Norine Borys – You are here.
Thanks so much for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the hop!
