Two projects in one weekend?!?!?   No, lol, it just took me a week to find the time to finally post them lol!  So, this project is for the Altenew Monthly Card Challenge, which is based on the colors picked by one of their designers. Time for a BEAUTIFUL Flower to INSPIRE in this Challenge + Video! - Altenew Blog 

On the right is the inspiration piece and on the left is the card I created.

This card has a ton of cool techniques in it. The background was lined using the Altenew "Classy Stripes" stencil.  I taped it down to my work surface over an A7 piece of Classic Crest Solar White 80 lb cardstock. Using a foam dauber, I used varying pressure to apply Altenew Crisp Dye Ink in Mango Smoothie.  Then I moved the stencil over the colored stripes and applied Altnew Crisp Dye Ink in Warm Sunshine with the foam daube and, again, varying pressure.  I loved this tone on tone look. I set this panel aside to work on the embellishments of the card. Since I did not have cardstock in the steel blue and purple colors from the inspiration piece, I used my Altenew watercolor along with watered down Altenew Crisp Dye ink in Lagoon and Deep Iris and blocked out color swatches on 140lb watercolor paper.  I kept spritzing these with water and adding dye and paint until I got a bunch of random swatches.  using the Altenew "Fantasy Floral 3D" die set I cut out the layers of flowers and set them aside.  I wanted to add leaves next so I did the same thing for the leaves of the die set: making swatches of steel blue and greens.  I set these aside once they were cut out as well.  I wanted to ground the colors of this card so I took a flower from the "Engagement Wishes" set as it contains two very large outline flower stamps.  I stamped these, offset in each lower corner of the card face using Altenew Crisp Dye Ink in Wisteria.  I patted the Wisteria ink pad onto my work surface, added water and layered on the dye in a watercolor paint fashion to give a very subtle depth to the bottom of the card to help anchor the colors.  Now came the fun part!!  

Using the scraps from die cutting the leaves, I went around the edge of the card stenciling just the tips of the leaves in Altenew Crisp Dye ink in Lime, Fresh Leaf, Lagoon and Deep Iris.  The cool thing about this stenciling technique is that you don't have to make masks of the areas you don't want covered.  By applying the ink lightly with a foam dauber and only going over the tips of the leaves, you can achieve a layering look quickly and easily with no fussy cutting masks.  Going back to the flowers and leaves embellishments, I wasn't quite happy with the color as they were too bright purple still.  I mixed Dark Chocolate and Lagoon on my work surface, added two parts water to one part mixed inks and applied this wash to each layer of the flowers with a wide brush.  This gave the shade I was looking for.  Now I applied the flowers and leaves to the cards with double sided adhesive foam squares, centering them towards the bottom.  I put the card face in my Stamparatus to apply the sentiment stamp. Also From the "Engagement Wishes" stamp set, I angled "Congratulations and applied both Lagoon and permanent black to the stamp.  I stamped it twice onto the card for good saturation.  The final touch was placing gold sequins and and dotting the card and the background flowers with Ranger Liquid Pearls in Bisque and lightly washing iridescent watercolor paint over the top layer of the middle 3D flower.  This was my first challenge card and I am really happy how it came out. Do you challenge yourself in your crafting?  I think we all should every now and then.  I ended up pulling out some techniques I hadn't even thought of in years for this card.  I hope you liked this project and I hope you challenge yourself to be your best crafter.  Thanks for stopping by!