Altenew Friends Blog Hop Graphic

Hello crafty friends, Latisha Yoast here and I am so excited for you all to join us in the Altenew Crafty Friends Blog Hop.  If you came from Anna Komenda’s Blog, you are in the right place! Be sure to read to the bottom for your opportunity to win 37 different prizes too!

The very first time that I made a card (for real) with proper cardstock and stamps was in 2001! My husband was about to go on his very first deployment, our daughter was 5, and our son was just a baby so we were a very young family. At the time the only place to get a nice card was at the Hallmark store, and the number of cards I needed to send him off with… well, buying them was out of the question because we didn’t have that kind of money. So, I was at a new friend’s house, and she had all of these stamps and ink pads. I had no idea what I was doing but the thought of putting love into a card to bring someone joy made me absolutely giddy. I still feel that way every time I sit down and make a card. If someone would have told me back then, that one day I would work for craft companies and magazines, I would have laughed. But here we are 17 years later, I still love getting my fingers inky, and I love all of the wonderful people I get to call friends in this community and especially this magazine! Cardmakers truly are very special people and some of the nicest I have ever met.

Today I am sharing a few Christmas cards, both using the Festive Poinsettia Stamp set from Altenew.

It is always fun to use the same stamp in different ways! For this card, the poinsettia was stamped in a light yellow ink onto watercolor paper, then watercolored. Once dry the poinsettias were carefully cut out with scissors and popped up with foam tape to create lovely dimension.

This card is similar in that the images were watercoloured, but the poinsettia was stamped many times onto a panel to create the illusion of a bigger stamp!

Your next stop along the way is Kymona Tracey.

If you get lost along the way, here is the complete list of blogs participating.

Altenew Scrapbook Blog

Vicky Papaioannou

Enza Gudor

Laurie Willison

Nicole Picadura

Ellen Hutson LLC

Lydia Evans

Olga Moss

Amy Tan

Therese Calvird

Galina Filippenko

Sveta Fotinia

Lisa Spangler

Anna Komenda

Scrapbook & Cards Today

Kymona Tracey

Vicki Boutin

Carissa Wiley

Agnieszka Malyszek

TaeEun Yoo

Sara Naumann

Hussena Calcuttawala

For hopping along today, Altenew is giving away a $50 gift certificate to 5 lucky winners and one Altenew Academy class to 5 lucky winners. There are also 12 awesome friends who are celebrating with us, and they are offering the following prizes:

**BONUS: We are also giving away a $20 Altenew Gift Certificate in addition to all the other amazing giveaways! Please leave a comment below telling us what your favourite holiday tradition is for a chance to win.**

Be sure to leave comments by Sunday, December 9th, 2018 for a chance to win!

37 winners will be chosen at random from the comments left on all of these blogs listed above and will be announced on the Altenew Card Blog and Altenew Scrapbook Blog on December 15th, 2018. The winner of the bonus $20 gift certificate will be announced on the 9th right here too!

One more bonus! Altenew has FREE U.S. shipping with code CRAFTY18 or $5 OFF international shipping with code FRIENDS18 at checkout. Offer valid from 11/29/2018 at 12:01 am EST through 12/1/2018 at 11:59 pm EST. Not valid on prior purchases. Cannot be combined with other promo codes.

A big thank you to our friends at Altenew for asking us to be a part of this fun Crafty Friends blog hop! Good luck and happy hopping!