Hello, crafty friends! Welcome to Altenew’s Crafty Friends blog hop. If you are coming from the fabulous Jennifer McGuire’s blog, you are in the right place.
To celebrate friendships in this special paper crafting community, I created a floral watercolor card inspired by Debby Hughes’s beautiful watercolor card.
She taught me how to watercolor florals when we met at the craft retreat last April. I still need to brush up on my watercoloring skills, but at least I don’t feel afraid of trying watercolors any more thanks to my sweet friend, Debby.
Before I started, I wanted to talk a little bit more about my crafty friends. I have been so lucky to make some amazing friendships through our mutual love of paper crafting.
It’s been my pleasure to get to know them better and inspire by their amazing talents. I’m so thankful to be part this paper crafting community full of kind, supportive, and talented people.
These photos were taken when I went to the craft retreat in Cincinnati, OH last April. We had a fantastic group of fun, sweet ladies in the ballroom crafting, chatting, and laughing for five days. I’m traveling again to Cincinnati this week to see my friends, of course, I’ll have a blast at the retreat with my most lovely, supportive, and amazing crafty friends.
For today’s project, I combined three flower stamp sets from Altenew to build my own floral arrangement: Build-A-Flower Coral Charm, Remember This, and Beautiful Day. I started by stamping the images with Versafine Onyx Black Ink on a piece of Strathmore watercolor paper.
FYI, I used the masking technique to create a dimension in my card while stamping. Then I watercolored my images with ZIG Clean Color Real Brush Pens.
It’s hard to see from the photo, but I watercolored in gray along the bouquet of my flowers to add some interest in my background. I added some white dots on the center of each flower using a white gel pen to add interest to my card.
It took me about three hours to complete my watercolor card. But I realized that how much I love watercoloring no matter how excellent I am at waterocloring.
I combined two sentiment stamps from Altenew Beautiful Inside stamp set to add a message insdie of my card.
To finish off my card, I stamped a fun sentiment and envelope image from Altenew Crafty Friends stamp set on the back of my card.
I also made a matching envelope by heat embossing the sentiment from Altenew Crafty Friends stamp set with Altenew Antique Gold embossing powder on a flap of my green envelope.
Video
I made a video tutorial to show you how to create a watercolor card. You can watch it above or on my YouTube channel.
Altenew Special Offer
Enjoy FREE U.S. shipping with code CRAFTY or $5 OFF international shipping with code FRIENDS at checkout now through October 19th at 11:59 pm EDT. Shop HERE>> www.altenew.com
Blog Hop Prizes
Altenew is giving away a $100 Altenew prize pack to FIVE lucky winners. There are also 13 awesome companies/magazines who are offering the following prizes:
- Jennifer McGuire Ink: 1 prize pack of three Altenew stamp sets
- Online Card Classes: 3 class spots
- Create and Craft TV: £50 gift certificate
- My Sweet Petunia: Mini MISTI
- Ellen Hutson LLC: $30 gift certificate
- Pretty Pink Posh: $30 gift certificate
- Simon Says Stamp: $30 gift certificate
- Chameleon Pens: 1 pack of 5 Chameleon pens
- Tombow USA: 1 pack of 10 dual brush pens
- WOW! Embossing Powder: $25 gift certificate
- Butterfly Reflections Ink: $25 gift certificate
- Freckled Fawn: $20 gift certificate
- Papercraft Magazines: One copy of each of the latest issues of four magazines
- Scrapbook & Cards Today Magazine: 1-year subscription
Be sure to leave comments by Friday, October 27th, 2017 at 11:59 PM EDT for a chance to win! 21 WINNERS will be chosen at random from the comments left on the participating blogs in the Blog Hop Day 1 and will be announced on the Altenew Card Blog and Altenew Scrapbook Blog on October 28th, 2017.
Another Giveaway
And there is more! I have a $20 Altenew gift certificate to give away. Leave a comment below, sharing a story about your crafty friends. I will announce one lucky winner on Thursday, October 26th. Good luck!
Blog Hop
It is now time to head on over to the fantastic Keeway Tsao’s blog to see what creation she has to inspire you all. Thanks so much for stopping by today. Happy hopping!
Supplies
I have listed the supplies I used below. I participate in several affiliate programs including Simon Says Stamp(SSS), Ellen Hutson(EH) and Altenew(AN). It means I get a small commission at no additional cost to you when products are purchased through links I share here. Thank you for your support.
 Altenew Build-A-Flower Coral Charm Shop at: SSS | AN | EH |
 Altenew Remember This Stamp Set Shop at: SSS | AN | EH |
 Altenew Beautiful Day Stamp Set Shop at: SSS | AN | EH |
 Altenew Crafty Friends Stamp Set Shop at: SSS | AN | EH |
 Altenew Beautiful Inside Stamp Set Shop at: SSS | AN | EH |
 ZIG Clean Color Real Brush 36 Set Shop at: SSS | AZ | EH |
 EK Success Cutter Bee Scissors Shop at: SSS | EH |
 Tim Holtz Tonic Paper Trimmer Shop at: SSS | AZ | EH |
 Wagner Embossing Heat Tool Shop at: SSS | HA | EH |
 Versamark Watermark Ink Shop at: SSS | HA | EH |
 EK Success Craft Tweezers Shop at: SSS | EH |
 Dahle Self-Healing Cutting Mat 18×12 Shop at: SSS | EH |
 Be Creative Double Sided Tape Shop at: SSS | EH |
 Versafine Onyx Black Ink Shop at: SSS | EH |
 3M Post It Notes Shop at: SSS | AZ |
 Neenah Solar White Cardstock 80LB Shop at: SSS | EH |
 Uni-Ball White Gel Pen Shop at: SSS | PS | EH |
 Tombow Removable Adhesive Shop at: SSS |
 Original MISTI Stamping Tool Shop at: SSS | AZ | EH |
 Altenew Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS | AN | EH |
 Strathmore watercolor paper Shop at: SSS | EH |
 Tim Holtz Water Brush Shop at: SSS | EH |
 Altenew Acrylic Block Set Shop at: AN |
 Memento Tuxedo Black Ink Shop at: SSS | EH |
Patty Jendrzejek
Your water coloring is amazing!
Oct . 19 . 2017Jean Arizona
Beautiful floral card. Thanks for sharing.
Oct . 19 . 2017knurse22
Your card is just gorgeous. I love the color scheme for those flowers!
Oct . 19 . 2017I have no local scrappy friends, but I have many online friends. It always amazes me how close you can get to someone without ever having met them in person! Although I actually HAVE met two online friends: one at a weekend crop in PA—she traveled from Myrtle Beach—and one from Colorado, whom I met up with at Aulani (Disney Resort) in Hawaii! And I had a dear friend who lived in Canada, whom I got to know well. We spoke on the phone and messaged each other daily. Then she got sick, and while I was on vacation, she had surgery, and did not recover. I was devastated, and think about her so often. This hobby has expanded my world view so much.
Melanie C.
Stunning! Can’t stop looking at this!
Oct . 19 . 2017Katya
Love these colours – they really pop!
Oct . 19 . 2017Mary Locke
Gorgeous card!
Oct . 19 . 2017Nana Griffin
Gorgeous!
Oct . 19 . 2017Ericka Strange
Such a gorgeous card! Love the colors and the video! I love my crafty friends and the inspiration and kindness they inspire!
Oct . 19 . 2017Carol Blaisdell
You are such an inspiration! I have a group of crafty friends that I get together with every month. I SO look forward to that time!
Oct . 19 . 2017Melinda Herbert
Beautiful cards! You inspire me to keep practicing my watercoloring!
Oct . 19 . 2017Sherry W
So pretty!
Oct . 19 . 2017Talitha Wright
Such a beautiful card! I love the watercoloring of the flowers. The time you put into this beauty was well worth it. Thanks for the video showing your technique.
Oct . 19 . 2017Patricia
Absolutely stunning!
Oct . 19 . 2017Robin Davis
I am new to card making and have made some fun, crafty friends. They are some of the kindness people I now know, and are so generous and thoughtful. Where have these crafty ladies been all of my life?! Card making is from the heart so you’ve made a friend with a big heart when you meet a card maker!
Oct . 19 . 2017Liza Mendez
OMG your one layer card is stunning!!!! Loving that stamp set and coloring, thanks for the inspiration.
Oct . 19 . 2017Kathy C.
Beautiful card!! Thank you for the video using the Zig water color brushes. I have a set and love them! Thank you for the inspiration!
Oct . 19 . 2017Maria Nyce
This card is gorgeous!!! Your coloring and composition is beautiful!!! So happy you used 2 out of 3 of the Altenew stamp sets I already own, I just had to order the Altenew Build-A-Flower Coral Charm Stamp bundle, thank you for sharing your time & talent with us!!!
Oct . 19 . 2017Susan O'Halloran
Just purchased Zig pens, so your video will be inspiration for me. Thanks so much!
Oct . 19 . 2017Broni
You are just too cute and I think you did a fabulous job watercoloring this gorgeous image!
Oct . 19 . 2017kartelene531
magnifique work thank you for your great tutorial video
Oct . 19 . 2017Erika
What a fab card!I love it!
Oct . 19 . 2017robynsroostblog
So pretty! I’m going to have to dust off my Zig pens and get to work.
Oct . 19 . 2017Donna J
Just gorgeous!!!!
Oct . 19 . 2017Jennifer Archambault
May you inspire me! This is another beautiful creation and I look forward to trying this technique soon! Thanks for sharing!
Oct . 19 . 2017Kate Davis
Just gorgeous!
Oct . 19 . 2017