Altenew Educator “Love & Friendship” Blog Hop + Giveaway

Altenew Card Blog

Welcome to Treasures In Letters! My name is Patty and I am so glad you stopped by for the Altenew Educator “Love & Friendship” Blog Hop + Giveaway. I hope you are having a great summer filled with fun, family and friends. If you have been following along, you have just arrived from Francine Dodwell. (If you find a broken link, you’ll find a master list of the hop links at the Altenew Card Blog …see link above).

The theme for this blog hop is Love & Friendship and I am excited to share that it has been the Altenew Educator Certificate Program that has created a new friendship between Amy Hill and myself. Amy reached out to me after completing the AECP program in March 2019. It turns out that we live only 2 miles away from each other. She has become a true crafting friend. We have traveled to a craft show, spent a few Saturday mornings stamping and encouraging each other, and she’s even come over to my house to help me take photos of my cards for this blog. We look forward to teaching some classes this fall and traveling to the Stamp & Scrapbook Expo in September. 🙂

Before I show you my cards I want to encourage those of you who are thinking about applying for the Altenew Educator Certificate Program to give it a try. It is an opportunity to focus on your card making skills, learn new techniques and practice them at your own pace and in your own home. There is no pressure at all to finish each level in a certain amount of time. You get out of it what you put into it. What I liked about it was that it made me accountable to myself. Let’s face it, the more you work at something, the better you get at it. Before I entered the AECP I did not make as many cards as I do now, so improvement was slow. The classes you take are yours forever so you can go back to them for inspiration and skill building whenever you want. I encourage any of you who are thinking about applying for the program, but maybe don’t see yourself teaching afterward, to do it because you want to grow in your skills … and make some new friends. I guarantee you will do both. And who knows, you just may find yourself teaching someone else how to make cards. 🙂

And here’s a perfect opportunity for you to give it a try: to celebrate the AECP blog hop and encourage people to join in the AECP program, Altenew will discount the following bundles by 20% from 7/19/2019 to 7/21/2019.

AECP Level 2 Class Bundle

AECP Level 1 Class Bundle

As many of you know, Altenew’s name was created by juxta-positioning the German word for old, which is Alt, and the English word new, to make up the name, Altenew. I kept this in mind while working on my cards and chose to use a few of my older supplies to make 4 new cards. I had a lot of fun playing around with different techniques and found that the more cards I made, the more ideas I had. And I loved the fact that I was taking supplies that I already owned and trying out new ways of using them. For any of you who follow my blog, you know that this has been my personal theme for this year….use your stash!!

So here is a group shot of the cards I have for you today. I hope you like them and that they inspire you to use some of the stamps and supplies you already own; and maybe inspire you to send a special friend a handmade card.

All the cards will have the Ditsy Print Stamp Set, the Layered Plaid Cover Die-A, the Geo Frames Stamp & Die Set, Altenew Permanent Black Ink, and Altenew Crystal Clear Embossing powder. I have active links to each of these supplies below.

How I made them: Every card started out by stamping a Geo Frame rectangle onto Neenah Solar White Classic Crest #80 card stock (or craft colored card stock) then stamped with Versamark ink and heat embossed with Altenew Crystal Clear embossing powder. I then used the matching die to cut them out. The next step was to use a paint brush to paint on a liquid mask over the stamped frame images. Once the mask was dry I stamped the Ditsy Print image onto the rectangle allowing it to go outside the edges, when necessary, then turning the image top to bottom and stamping the image again (so that the whole rectangle had flowers on it)… but not allowing the images to overlap. Then I layered the stamped images with the ink combinations that I liked. Once all the ink had dried, I rubbed off the mask using my finger or an adhesive eraser. In all the cards I used a Sakura Gelly Roll pen to add dots to the Geo frame stamped images.

Please note: All of my Altenew links are not affiliate links, however, they will take you directly to the products at the Altenew website.

Other supplies used in this card: Altenew Crisp Dye Inks: Pink Diamond, Pinkalicious, Rubellite; Altenew Antique Gold Pigment Ink, Altenew Crystal Clear Embossing Powder, Versamark Ink, Matte Gold Card Stock, Altenew Spring Shower Cover Die, Altenew Artist Markers: Forest Glades, Evergreen, Frayed Leaf, Altenew Leaf Canopy Stamp Set, Brutus Monroe Raven Embossing Powder, Fuschia Card Stock, Clear Sequins, Sakura Gold Gelly Roll pen. How I Made It: To heat emboss the Plaid Cover die, I stamped Altenew Antique Gold pigment ink over the plaid cover die then sprinkled with crystal clear embossing powder and heat set. For a second coat I used Versamark ink to stamp the die cut and then added more clear embossing powder. The leaf pieces from the Spring Shower Cover Die were colored using Altenew Artist Markers. The sentiment was stamped with Versamark and heat set with Brutus Monroe Raven embossing powder. The fuschia card stock rectangle frame was made using nesting rectangle dies (vendor of choice) and stacking 3-4 together.

For instructions on how to make the gatefold card, please see Jennifer McGuire’s June 13, 2019 YouTube post. I have an active link to her post under the picture above.

Other supplies used in this card: Altenew Crisp Dye Inks: Iceberg, Eastern Sky, Ultramarine; Altenew Dearest Friend Stamp Set, foam tape, Blue Card Stock, small Clear Sequins, Black Sakura Gelly Roll pen. How I Made It: In this card I die cut the Layered Plaid Cover Die A out of craft foam, inked it up (the craft foam) and stamped it onto the front of my gate-fold card. I then used the black copic multi-liner to follow the plaid pattern. To keep me from drawing lines that went past the plaid stripes, I used masking paper all around the edges of card front so that my multi-liner lines would not have blobs at the beginning and ends. (I hope that makes sense.) The blue card stock rectangle frame was made using nesting rectangle dies (vendor of choice) and stacking 3-4 together.

Other supplies used in this card: Altenew Crisp Dye Inks: Chamomile, Snapdragon, Marigold; Altenew Leaf Canopy Stamp Set, Altenew Pure White Embossing Powder, Clear Acetate, Orange Card Stock, foam tape, Clear, Flat sequins, Sakura Black Gelly Roll pen.

Other supplies used in this card: Altenew Crisp Dye Inks: Chamomile, Snapdragon, Marigold; Craft Card Stock, Foam Tape, Altenew Leaf Canopy Stamp Set, Black Card Stock, White Sakura Gelly Roll pen. How I made it: This card features a dry embossed Layered Plaid Cover Die (follow the directions on your die cutting machine to dry emboss.) After the card face had been dry embossed and multi-lined, I then splattered the card with the inks I used to layer the Ditsy Print. (Do this BEFORE adding the Geo stamped frame to the card.)

Supplies I used in ALL of the cards: Altenew Ditsy Print Stamp Set, Altenew Geo Frames Stamp & Die Set, Altenew Layered Plaid Cover Die A, Altenew Crisp Dye Inks: Frayed Leaf, Forest Glades, Evergreen, Permanent Black (except on the gold card); Winsor & Newton Art Masking Fluid, Copic Multi-liner .3 (not used in the gold card), Neenah Solar White Classic Crest card stock #80, #110, Altenew Crystal Clear Embossing Powder, Altenew Pure White Embossing Powder (not used in the gold card), Black card stock (not used in the gold card), Clear Sequins, Sakura Gelly Roll Pens: black, white, or gold, Craft Foam (not used on gate-fold card)

I ended up taking a real lot of photos of these cards before choosing the ones that I put in the blog, with that in mind, here are a few more photos, just because….

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today. Please leave me a message to let me know what you thought of the cards. Which one was your favorite?

Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 3 lucky winners! Please leave a comment here on the Altenew Blog by 7/26/19 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 blogs on 7/30/19.

Continue following the blog hop by clicking on Nenette Madero‘s link below.

Hop Order: 

Altenew Card Blog

Terri Marie Koszler

Michelle Ochoa Murray

Maryam Sharara

Amber Rain Davis

Irina Fonina

Teri Wilson

Francine Dodwell

Patty Mello

Nenette S. Madero

Vicki Finger

Nandini Karmarkar

Amy Hill

Christine Pennington

Erum Tasneem