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 |
nikki
Such a beautiful card. Love your coloring.
Oct . 20 . 2017Kristen
As usual your card is BEAUTIFUL! Someday I would LOVE to learn to watercolor this way! I have friends who craft but we are all caught up in the doings of life in general so unfortunately we don’t get to create much…but we talk about it…a lot!
Oct . 20 . 2017Mary Holshouser
The flowers are colored so beautifully.
Oct . 20 . 2017They have so much dimension.
Great ideas for the envelopes.
I have to start embellishing
the envelopes.
thanks for sharing.
Beth Merrill
I love how by combining images from different stamp sets you can create designs in much the same way you can create a floral bouquet after a stroll through a beautiful garden. Just lovely!
Oct . 20 . 2017Stanlee Runner
Gorgeous card,thanks for sharing.
Oct . 20 . 2017Pam Aseltine. Edmonton. Canada
Love to see the card come to life. Awesome
Oct . 20 . 2017maria f.
A beautiful card, May, but I love all your photos of crafty friends even more! Looks like you and Kelly G. win the tallest crafter award 😉 Until now I’ve always only crafted on my own. I’m not in the US enough to attend all those fun events. And I’ve not physically gotten into the German crafting community. Yet. We’ll see.
Oct . 20 . 2017Ali
So beautiful and so wonderfully colourful!!
Oct . 20 . 2017Jan G
You do the most beautiful cards!
Oct . 20 . 2017Raven
The watercolor look you got with those pens is incredible. What a beautiful card!
Oct . 20 . 2017Sharon L.
Gorgeous card, love the colors!
Oct . 20 . 2017Heidi
Great pictures and fabulous community! Your watercolouring is beautiful!
Oct . 20 . 2017Lori Hefner
Beautiful card and I love your water coloring:) Love all the pics of you and your crafty friends as well! So much fun:) Thank you for sharing your inspiration:)
Oct . 20 . 2017michelle sullivan
as always beautiful May! I am newer to water coloring- specifically with the zigs. I prefer my distress inks the best as they are easier for me. I get together once a month with 5 others for stamping. we have fun, lots of laughs!
Oct . 20 . 2017Jackie Price
A gorgeous card that you watercoloured just beautifully!! Love the colours and the gray you added to the background just seems to set the image. None of my friends are into paper crafting or cardmaking so I often work at home by myself. Last November I started going to a crafting day once a month and am starting to make friends there. My mom is big into it so when we are able to get together for a few days one of them is usually spent making cards. We always enjoy that time together
Oct . 20 . 2017K Eddington (Happy Hapa)
✨Beautiful! ✩ ♡🌟 Love all of the doodles. 😊 Totally made me smile. ✩ I would love to either copy that technique although you make it look so easy
Oct . 20 . 2017Mimi r
Beautiful card and I love seeing all of those lovely photos.
Oct . 19 . 2017jackiescrafttable
You watercolor like a pro already. Gorgeous card! I love getting together with my crafty friends too. We don’t get together as often as I’d like, but when we do, it’s always a lot of fun.
Oct . 19 . 2017Stephanie Desbiens-McDonald
It’s such a beautiful card! The flowers look so delicate! Great card!
Oct . 19 . 2017Deb Neis
Beautiful use of color! Your cars is lovely!
Oct . 19 . 2017Paula Rendfeld
Your card is absolutely stunning. The colors are beautiful. I love that with all the negativity going on in this country I can meet up with my crafty friends to make the real world events go away for a little while. They are all so kind and positive.
Oct . 19 . 2017LIBBY UETRECHT
Thank you
Oct . 19 . 2017Lynne Ward Wallace
Keeway – I really enjoyed your stories and comments about your crafty friendships. Your card is inspired. The colors are so pretty.
Oct . 19 . 2017mypaperepiphany
Stunning! You’re colouring is so subtle and beautiful! I’m very jealous of all the crafty friends you’ve met:)
Oct . 19 . 2017trishden
I love your water coloring technique, just beautiful. Thanks for the tutorial, you make it look so easy.
Oct . 19 . 2017trishden948(at)yahoo(dot)com