Hello, crafty friends!
I'm so happy and honoured to be joining Altenew for the Craft-A-Flower: Sunburst Azalea Release Blog Hop today showcasing the next installment in their monthly Craft A Flower series: Sunburst Azalea! Craft-A-Flower is a monthly subscription plan for their Craft-A-Flower Die Set. When signed up, you are guaranteed a spot in their monthly Craft-A-Flower releases and will receive a set each month - at a specially discounted price! ($35.99 →$29.99)
If you arrived here from Emily Midgett's Blog, then you are on the right track. If this is your first stop, then you will want to start at the beginning, the Altenew Card Blog. We've got tons of inspiration and giveaways for you on the hop today, so keep reading till the end of this post for more information.
This Sunburst Azalea Set is particularly wonderful, because you receive several different angles of the opened flower, as well as foliage and flower stamens to create a gorgeous azalea. I love the way that Altenew has been grouping their layered floral die cut sets by layer; it helps so much with the layering, not to mention saving time! Grouping the layers into one die means fewer passes in your die cut machine! Isn’t that so clever? I modeled my azaleas after the Autumn Sunburst Encore Azalea. I kept the majority of the flowers pink and used varying shades of fuchsia to add depth to the petals and die cut layers.
To create my card, I first took a 4.25″ x 5.5″ panel of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Cardstock and placed the flower dies from the Sunburst Azalea Die Set about one-third of the way down and as far to the right as possible and ran it through my Platinum 6 Die Cutting Machine. I repeated the same steps with the leaf and the foliage layer dies. Next, following the layering guide, I watercolored a layer of Cotton Candy, Coral Berry, and Rubellite from the Altenew Watercolor 36 Pan Set with the lightest color on the base layer. I largely concentrated the color in the center of the flowers and used liquid glue to adhere them altogether.
Next, I die-cut Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Cardstock with some additional leaves and foliage dies from the Create-A-Wreath Die Set. I mixed shades of green (Evergreen, Forest Glades, Bamboo, Frayed Leaf) from the Altenew Watercolor 36 Pan Set to get varying shades of green on my die-cut pieces and used liquid glue to adhere them together. I also added a die cut circle from the Create-A-Wreath Die Set, cut from Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Cardstock and coloured using Firefly and Grass Field inks, to ‘ground’ the flowers.
To create the background, I stamped the background design from the Pattern Play: Diamond Stamp Set in Versamark Ink onto Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Cardstock, then sprinkled some White Embossing Powder over the image, and melted the powder with a Heat Tool. Next, I applied Firefly and Grass Field inks to the panel using an ink blending tool to highlight and bring out the embossed areas more. Then, I stamped the argyle background image from the Pattern Play: Diamond Stamp Set onto another piece of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Cardstock with Moon Rock ink, and popped the panel up on top of the card panel with foam adhesive. I added the flowers and a stamped sentiment from the Celebrate The Day Glimmer Plate set with more foam adhesive. Then, to complete, I splattered the card with white gouache and Ocean Waves Metallic Shimmer Ink Spray before adhering it down to a side-folding A2-size white card base using tape runner. I finished the design with some sparkling Antique Gold - Sequins around the flower spray to embellish.
Giveaway Prizes:
$200 in total prizes! To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 2 lucky winners and a $20 gift certificate to 5 winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and/or each designer’s blog post on the blog hop list below by 03/13/2022 for a chance to win. Altenew will draw 7 random winners from the comments left on each stop of this blog hop and announce the winners on the Altenew Winners Page on 03/15/2022.
Blog Hop Order:
Next Stop on this Blog Hop is the incredibly talented, Nathalie DeSousa's blog. Just in case you lose your place along the way, here is the complete list of participants so that you can find your way back:
Hussena Calcuttawala (You are HERE)
I really appreciate you stopping by and participating in this blog hop! If you like what you've seen from me, please give me a follow over on my Instagram (@hussena_cal) and/or subscribe to my blog if you haven't already.
