Good morning everyone. I have a selection of cards for you today, as I have been playing with my Altenew ‘Build-a-flower: Aster’ stamp and die set. Now, I’ve had this set for quite a few weeks, ordered from Seven Hills Crafts in the middle of May. I had an initial little play with them, but I couldn’t do, I didn’t like it, I tried several times but I just couldn’t get it right. I don’t know whether it was the colours I was using, but I just didn’t like the effect of using all three layers.

Then – I watched the Altenew programme on Create and Craft yesterday, and she made it look so easy. Why on earth couldn’t I get the hang of this stamp set? So – I went and played again, chose the Sheena Douglass Stamping Card, Altenew inks, and went for it. And – you know what – I liked what I made. Mostly! I didn’t like the images with the outline, I must admit, so I only used the base and detail layer.

I made 8 flowers in total, using a variety of Altenew ink sets I had, played with the different base layer being the lightest or next to lightest colour and moved one colour up for the detail layer, and only one of the flowers didn’t really work well – you’ll see that shortly!

The two cards above will be entered into two different challenges.

The first one was made using the Altenew ‘Layered Plaid Cover Die’, which I’ll be entering into the Altenew June challenge, and Case this sketch challenge, and the second is for Freshly Made Sketches. One of them also being entered into the Allsorts Challenge for ‘Flower Power’.

I can hear you asking what I did with the six other flowers:

I made little cards with a sweet little word from Stampin Up ‘Sunshine Sayings’. Probably to be used a little gift cards, or notelets. I wanted to use them all, as otherwise they would just be left sitting there on my desk – amidst things I haven’t cleared away – yet! I won’t be entering these little cards into any challenges – they were ‘just for fun’.