Altenew 3rd Anniversary Blog Hop + Giveaway!

Good morning! Emily Midgett from Sixth Street Sundries and former Butterfly Reflections Ink Design Team member here with you today to celebrate a special event happening all over the crafty world... 

I was so honored and excited when Vanessa asked me to represent Butterfly Reflections Ink for the Altenew 3rd Anniversary Blog Hop! You should have arrived here from Tracey McNeeley's blog, and your next stop is Eunyoung Lee. There are some absolutely amazing prizes along the way, including Butterfly Reflections Ink, and some wonderfully talented artists sharing their work with you! 

For my first project, I chose to work with Altenew's Smile More and the coordinating dies. I started by die cutting and stamping several of the blooms and foliage using Versafine ink and heat embossing it with some Silver Pearl embossing powder. This combination creates a lovely pearlescent charcoal finish. I colored all of the blooms with my Pale Rose Zig marker, using a damp paintbrush to blend the color out and create depth. I wanted to go a bit more of a non-traditional route with the foliage; I love monotone leaves with pops of color on the flowers, so I chose to color all of the leaves with my Gray Brown Zig marker, again blending with a damp paintbrush. 

After I had assembled my bouquet, I used some Press 'n Seal to pick it up and put tape all over the back so that it would maintain its shape while I worked on the card base. I added an A2 sized panel of charcoal glitter paper from my stash to the card base, then trimmed down a panel of pale pink card stock. I used my ink blending tool and Altenew's Purple Wine ink to blend a pretty rose colored ombre down the front of my panel. I heat embossed my greeting from Smile More using the same Versafine/Silver Pearl embossing powder combination, adhered my bouquet with dimensional adhesive, then added a few dots of Oyster Gray Nuvo drops to balance out the bouquet. 

For my last card, I chose to use a bit more traditional color palette. I started by stamping and masking the blooms from Adore You using white pigment ink (like this one) and some handy dandy masking sheets onto some pale, gray blue card stock. Using colored pencils on colored card stock is one of my favorite uses for Prismacolor pencils. The two tools that I find invaluable for this process is my White Prismacolor pencil and my Colorless Blender pencil. After you have stamped your images using a pale or white ink, color the images using your white pencil, then follow up with your chosen colors, finally using the blending pencil to blend the colors seamlessly. The white layer beneath mutes the colors a bit, but I think it really makes the colored pencil images pop off of the page. 

After I had finished coloring my blooms, I used a ruler and my white pencil to draw some lines in the opposite corner from my floral spray. I heat embossed my greeting, also from Adore You, onto some linen vellum using some white embossing powder. The last thing was to add a smattering of coordinating sequins from my stash. 

Now, for the giveaway details! This blog hop has some incredible prizes to offer the commenters:

Altenew is giving away $50 gift certificates to FIVE lucky winners. There are also 10 awesome companies who are celebrating with us, and they are offering the following prizes:

• My Sweet Petunia : Mini MISTI
• Pretty Pink Posh : $30 Gift Certificate
• WOW! Embossing Powder : $30 Prize Pack
• Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L : $30 Prize Pack
• Tombow USA: 1 Pack of 10 Dual Brush Pens
• Chameleon Pens: 1 Pack of 5 Chameleon Pens
• Butterfly Reflections Ink: $25 Gift Certificate
• Ellen Huston LLC : $25 Gift Certificate
• Freckled Fawn : $25 Gift Certificate
• Simon Says Stamp : $25 Gift Certificate

Be sure to leave comments by Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at 11:59 PM EDT for a chance to win! 15 WINNERS will be chosen at random from the comments left on any of the blogs listed below and will be announced on the Altenew blog on April 28th, 2017.

Your next stop is Eunyoung Lee. Thanks for stopping by and happy hopping!