Altenew July 2018 Stamp/Die Release Blog Hop + Giveaway

Hello there!  I am so excited to be here as a stop along the hop with Altenew! There is a huge Blog Hop today at Altenew and I am hopping along with many ladies that I very much admire!

I'm also pleased to tell you that my second stamp set, "Kind Words" is being released today.  This was another collaboration with my friend, Tasnim Ahmed, who illustrated the set for me.  She is a really gifted artist and I am actually getting to the point where I recognize some designs as her illustrations.  I have several projects to show you today, so lets get on with the details of this release!

This set actually came about for a couple of different reasons.  The first was many of you!  When I released my first set, Wings of Hope, with Altenew in February, I was blown away by the kind and encouraging comments you left here on my blog!  It made me think of things I would want to say to all of you so the phrase "Kind words can mean so much...... ....yours will not be forgotten" is because of all of you.

The second reason is because I like to send a lot of encouragement cards.  Some of the sentiments in "Kind Words" are more that I have been wishing I had stamp sets for.  The Lorraine Mitchell quote is one that I have used and loved for many years in cards I send to my girlfriends.  I hope you'll enjoy using it as well.

My daughter is the single biggest recipient of my encouragement cards and this post is dedicated to her.  About 4 years ago, she was diagnosed with a couple of the same autoimmune diseases that I have, RA and MS.  Earlier this year, they realized they had misdiagnosed one of the illnesses and that she has a much more serious illness than what they originally thought. When doing MRI's on her joints for what they thought was RA, they realized something was not right.  Her joints should be damaged from the RA, but in her case, it was the tissue that had the damage.  So, they realized the original diagnosis was wrong and did an antibody specific blood test for Mixed Connective Tissue Disease (MCTD) which was positive. Here's a little bit from the Mayo Clinic:

• Mixed connective tissue disease is an autoimmune disorder. In autoimmune disorders, your immune system — responsible for fighting off disease — mistakenly attacks healthy cells.

• In connective tissue diseases, your immune system attacks the fibers (Muscles, Tendons, etc.) that provide the framework and support for your body. 

Eventually, your vital organs become involved.  Most deaths from MCTD are due to heart failure caused by Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.  My daughter already has heart and kidney involvement.

I know what a struggle it can be just to get out of bed and be present some days.  I have several autoimmune diseases myself, so I totally get it.  As the mom to three high energy boys (which takes a lot of energy for a normal healthy mom) it's even harder when you have illnesses that completely zap your energy.  You'd be amazed at the little things that just totally wipe you out.  It's also really hard not to get discouraged, especially when the medicines you take aren't helping and sometimes have horrible side effects.  When I was having to do shots for my MS, one of the shots they had me on was WICKED!  It burned and stung and left huge 3 or 4 inch diameter knots under the skin and I'd have to stay on ice for the first 24 hours.  About the time the injection site was feeling better, it would be time to do another one.  It's a question of which is worse, the medicine or the illness and honestly, it's a toss up most of the time.  So for that reason alone, I try to keep her encouraged.  I've been there and walked in those shoes myself.  There is no medicine for MCTD.

In case you haven't noticed, there is a movement happening right now across the country for lots of folks to be kind to each other.  It's not just in the Paper-Crafting community but in lots of industries across the country.  Who can't use a little kindness or encouragement?  This stamp set was born out of that desire.

I have a Word document that I like to keep with sayings or quotes that are meaningful. I add to it when I think of something or when I come across a quote that I like.  I also have times when I want to let someone know that their kindness touched my heart.  When I think of just the right thing to say, I always keep that in my document for future reference.  Jennifer McGuire is one of those people whose kind words made a big impact in my life.  The quote by Leo F. Buscaglia in the Kind Words Stamp Set was chosen as my way to honor Jennifer and I made a card using this sentiment for today's hop along with a release from last month, Climbing Clematis. I love the large leaves in Beautiful Heart and so I chose to use those instead of the ones that came with Climbing Clematis.

My first few cards all use sentiments from the Kind Words Stamp Set.  Because there are a couple of references to stars in this set, I wanted a little starry background to be able to stamp or emboss.  Knowing my love for gold, you probably already know I did heat embossing for my stars.  For my first card I did some ink blending in the upper left hand corner using Lagoon Ink on some turquoise cardstock.  To intensify the farthest part of the galaxy, I blended some Sapphire Ink on top of that.  Then I heat embossed the stars using some gold sparkle embossing powder.  I moved my stamp and heat embossed more of the stars to cover a larger area.  This creates the illusion of a night sky, (at least to me).

Once the heat embossing was done, I hit it with some shimmer spritz for even more sparkle.  I cut the panel down to 4 x 5.25 inches and mounted it on a horizontal top folding white card base.  To make some of the stars really pop, I adhered some iridescent star confetti on top of some of the stars using Ranger Multi Medium Matte.

For the next card, I started with a panel of white cardstock and blended Lagoon on the upper left hand corner. This time I used Iridescent sparkle embossing powder to stamp the stars with some of the iridescent stars adhered on top of that as well.  I die cut both, the gold and the cardstock panels with some stitched rectangle dies because I can't seem to cut anything completely straight so that takes the guesswork out of it for me.  I have several different rectangle die sets that I use to get the look I want for the mat and the main card panel.  I used white card bases for most of my cards today.

This card uses a sentiment from Kind Words with an old favorite, Beautiful Day.  I heat embossed the bloom and leaves with Antique Gold Embossing Powder and then stamped them using my Altenew Crisp Inks.  For the bloom, I used the Pink Pearl, Coral Bliss and Heart Beat.  For the leaves I used Frayed Leaf with Forest Glades.  I added a little pearl in the center for that special touch.

Next up are a couple of cards made with a new set called Beautiful Heart.  I was so excited to get this set and use it!  For my first card, I die cut a couple of the blooms from some coral cardstock.  I stamped the layers in Coral Berry and Ruby Red, using the stamp set and then I added some additional details using markers.  The leaves are stamped in Frayed Leaf and Forest Glades.  For this set, there is an outline, a more solid image and a detailed image for each.  The small leaf image has just and outline layers and a solid layer. Since I still stamped the layers, I used that as my guidelines to add more details with markers.  I haven't ever tried this before but I was pretty tickled with my results.  Using colored cardstock for the blooms is a technique that I saw once from Emily Midget so I tucked it away and this was the perfect technique for these cards.  Emily did it because she doesn't care for the white outline you'd get from traditional stamping on white card stock so this was her solution.

For the background of this card, I also used a frame from a new cover die from this July 2018 Release from Altenew called Leaf Frame Cover Die.  Because I wanted to pair it up with a navy card base, I thought by adding it in a lighter color, it would give a lot of texture to the background.  I also used the same cream color for the sentiment strip.  The sentiment is from Beautiful Heart and I love it.  I can think of at least a dozen people I could send it to right now.  It will be one I use often.

Normally I would cut off the overhanging bits of the leaves but when I tried to stand this card up, it actually did stand.  So I decided to leave it and I'll send it in a 5 x 7 envelope.  These leaves are especially beautiful and I'm sure I will use them for other arrangements as well.  I added little pearls to the center of the blooms.

This card also uses the Beautiful Heart Stamp and Die Bundle.  Again I used die cuts with the stamps and then added more details with markers.  For this bloom, I used Rose Quartz with Puffy Heart.  On this set I like to stamp the outline and the most solid image using the same color of ink, then the third layer with a slightly deeper shade.  As before, I used the other two layers of stamping as a guideline for my detail work with markers.  These leaves are stamped with Forest Glades and Evergreen onto white cardstock. I really like the added dimension that the darker detail layer adds.  I did not add any marker details to any of the leaves.  For the darker maroon color in the center of this bloom, I used a Burgundy gel pen.  My pens are really old and leftovers from my scrap-booking days so it took a while to get the ink flowing enough to make the small dots.

My last two cards use a new set called Needlework Motif.  I can see Tasnim's talent in this illustration and I'd bet money that it is her design.

If any of you have Persian Motifs Stamps and Dies, this is done in the same style but in larger images with coordinating dies.  For my first card I heat embossed the image on some watercolor paper and then used my Zigs to watercolor it.  Honestly, you could just heat emboss this image on a colored cardstock for a simple but elegant look.  There are also coordinating dies for the floral images.  For my card, I adhered the watercolor panel directly to a pale pink cardbase.  I added some sequins with little jewels in the center for some bling.  I adhered both with Multi Medium Matte.

There are a lot of sentiments with this set but I wanted to use this one from Kind Words.  In order to keep the whole design, I couldn't mat this panel as I normally would have.  

For my last card, I heat embossed the image onto watercolor paper and colored it in the same way.  This time I die cut the image and two additional layers so that I could create a thicker element for my card.  I chose some purple cardstock for my card base and again used some glitter jewels to embellish my card. I have had these for many years and I have no idea where I got them.  I also used the same sentiment on this card.  I have a girlfriend that loves this shade of purple (as do I) and I'm planning to send this card to her.  She's been an encouragement to me many times over the 34 years we've know each other.  

Please be sure to hop along with everyone!  

Altenew Card Blog

Jennifer McGuire 

Svitlana Shayevich

Lilith Eeckels

Kathy Racoosin

May Sukyong Park

Zinia Redo

Altenew Scrapbook Blog

Erum Tasneem

Enza Gudor

Nina-Marie Trapani

Virginia Lu

Sandra Dietrich

Laura Jane

Rubeena Ianigro

Lydia Evans

Dana Gong

Flora Monika Farkas

Norine Borys

Nicole Picadura

Jessica Frost-Ballas

Reiko Tsuchida

Karin Åkesdotter

Sveta Fotinia

Vicki Finger

Kymona Tracey

Emily Midgett

Kristina Pokazanieva

There's no coordinating dies for Kind Words but I hope you'll enjoy using these sentiments over and over again.  My heart is in every single one. 

In celebration of this release, Altenew is sponsoring a $30 Gift Card to the Altenew Store to a lucky winner from my blog.  Additionally, there will be six $50.00 Gift Card winners from the Altenew Blog so don't forget to comment there as well.  To be eligible to win on my blog, you must leave a comment here by 11:59 p.m CST on July 31st.  I will choose a random winner on August 1st and it will be announced here on my blog soon after that so don't forget to check back to see if you are a winner!  

I've linked the supplies I've used throughout my post because I have no WIFI at our new house and the links list uses too much data. I still use a desktop at home rather than a laptop, so I can't even run to McDonald's to do it.  We can't wait until they get fiber optic cable to our neighborhood, not to mention actual cable TV Channels.  You can always shop through my affiliate link at Altenew here or in the side bar.  As always, I appreciate your support!  Thanks to all of you for your kinds words!