Tasnim Ahmed
President
Tasnim attained her bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2010. Even though arts and crafts has always been a part of her life, she only discovered stamping in 2011, and started her blog Cards & Bookmarks the following year. She soon realized that she had the potential to introduce designs/greetings relevant to cultures that were not represented in mainstream crafting space, and thus the research and planning for Altenew began. She is committed to bringing innovative designs based on lifestyles from around the world.
In addition to running Altenew, and being a full-time mom to her three year old daughter, Tasnim is a current student at Studio Arabiya, an online institute based in Cairo, Egypt. She also teaches weekly classes and leads the girls youth group at her local community center. Apart from card making and designing stamps, she enjoys hiking, running, and learning languages.
Jennifer Rzasa
Creative Director
Jennifer is an elementary music teacher living in Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. Although she studied viola performance at Boston University and holds a master's degree in education, her love of art has always been present in her life. She “discovered” paper crafting in 2006, but it didn’t really become a hobby until four years later when she started her blog, Our Change of Art. Since then, she has been published in many paper crafting magazines, worked as a design team member for various companies, and hosts the Runway Inspired Challenge.
In addition to her paper crafting endeavors, Jennifer is a published illustrator, and enjoys painting fashion illustrations. She is thrilled to be designing and illustrating for Altenew!
When she is not teaching or in her craft room, Jennifer can be found exploring the local food in Boston, riding her skateboard with her husband Dave, sewing costumes for video game and comic book conventions, or cooking at home.
May Sukyong Park
Marketing Lead
Originally a South Korean girl, May moved to Southern California with her husband in 2009. She has done her Bachelors in Journalism and Sociology in Seoul, South Korea. She had not enjoyed any arts and crafts until she was first introduced to stamping in 2010. Card making became her biggest hobby where she found her passion when she started blogging in 2012. Then her first cardmaking book came out last April in South Korea.
May turned her love of using Altenew products as a Design Team member into a job. A stickler for perfection, she is constantly coming up with creative ideas to make Altenew better. When she doesn't fulfill the role of Altenew Marketing Lead, May loves making cards, designing stamps, taking photos of her two cats, swimming in the sunshine, looking for inspiration from everywhere. You can find May’s clever creations on her blog: Mayholic in Crafts and connect with her on the following sites: YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Flickr
Nicole Picadura
Education Lead
Nicole was born and raised in South Korea, and moved to the states in 2007 after marrying her husband. They currently live in Sacramento, California with their two furry babies. Nicole was first introduced to scrapbooking in 2007 and slowly moved on to cardmaking and stamping. Her main style is Clean and Simple, and she believes anyone can create beautiful cards without spending too much time and share the love of handmade, hand-stamped cards. She loves teaching classes and filming video tutorials to share her passion with fellow crafters.
You can connect with her on her Blog, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube.
Altenew Designers
May Sukyong Park was born and raised in South Korea, and moved to Southern California with her husband in 2009. She had not enjoyed any arts and crafts until she was first introduced to stamping in 2010. Then she started scrapbooking and slowly moved in to making cards. It became her biggest hobby where she found her passion when she started blogging in 2012. She loves to create clean and simple cards based on creative designs and clever ideas. She is also able to tell a whole story with a single image. Her projects are just witty, catchy, original, and fun! You can find May’s clever creations on her blog: Mayholic in Crafts and connect with her on the following sites: Facebook Instagram Pinterest Flickr
Amy (aka Aimes) is a self-confessed tea, toast and papercrafting addict living in Sheffield, England. She took a leap of faith in 2014 and embarked on a new career as the Editor of the UK magazines, Simply Cards & Papercraft and Creative Stamping. She considers herself extremely fortunate to be surrounded with papercrafting supplies both in and out of the office!
Amy found her passion for stamping and cardmaking after starting her blog, Crafting Confessions, in 2008. She has worked on various design teams and has her work frequently published in a range of papercrafting titles. Although she adores clean and graphic designs, she isn’t afraid to try various styles from time to time – so long as she’s having fun in the creative process, then she’s happy!
You can check out what Amy’s up to on her blog or instagram feed.
Aga is a short form for her name, Agnieszka. She was born and raised in Poland and moved a couple of years ago to Manchester, England. She always loved being creative and about 6 years ago she started her paper crafting adventure by making cards for family and friends. She has been hooked on card making ever since. During this time,Aga has served as a member of several design teams and has guest designed projects for a number of others. She has been published in numerous craft publications and contributed to several craft related classes. Among other honours, she was also chosen as one of the 10 finalists in the Paper Crafts 2012 Gallery Idol Contest. She describes her style as clean and simple with a touch of ink splatters and messy thread tangles.
You can find more of Aga’s creations on her blog: Just Made From Paper and connect with her on Instagram, Pinterest and Flickr.
Marika lives in Oulu, Finland with her husband and her two lovely, little girls. At the moment she is a full-time-mom for her girls and she loves to escape into her craft room when ever it is possible. She has been crafting with different mediums for all her life but a few years ago she found paper crafting and colouring to be her passion – and her therapy for her hectic life. Marika loves to create cards with flowers and at the moment she is utterly and completely lost in the world of watercolours and she is loving it!
Yana is a passionate cardmaker who cannot imagine her life without coffee and stamping. She has been married for a little bit over three years and is living happily with her husband and two black cats! Yana loves to travel, meet new people, discover new cultures and just explore. She has been to a few places in Europe, Africa, Asia and USA. Her next dream destination is Madagascar, the nature there is simply breathtaking!
Anna lives in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. She is married to her classmate, and they have a very active three year old named Alice, who serves as her main inspiration.
Anna has been scrapbooking since August 2011, when she created her first card for a friend. Ever since then, she hasn't lived without paper. She loves to work with bright and clean colors, when all attention goes to pictures and memories. And that is why she scrapbooks – to keep the memories for a long time to come, not only in the hearts or gigabytes of pictures – but to have something that one can touch and feel.
Card making has been her passion for the last year – it is her way to relax, and try some new techniques.
Past Designers
Melania Deasy lives in Surabaya, Indonesia with her husband and 6 years old son. She loved drawing ever since she was a little girl and eventually took Visual Communication Design as her major in University. She started paper crafting in 2011 after seeing many amazing cards in the internet. She was very excited to try stamping and never stopped until now. She works as a photographer, and loves music and movies. You can see her blog at www.melaniadeasy.blogspot.com and her instagram here
Jocelyn Olson lives with her husband and two children in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She started paper crafting over nine years ago when her oldest child was born, and she made handmade birth announcements. A couple of years later, after discovering a local stamp store in upstate New York, she began stamping and making cards. Since then, Jocelyn has worked on several design teams, taught classes, and published in paper crafting and stamping magazines. The majority of her projects are cards, but she also makes mini albums, 6×8 layouts, tags and wrapping, and altered projects/gifts. In addition to paper crafting, Jocelyn works as a research and evaluation consultant to states and Federal centers. Her blog is http://redballooncards.blogspot.com/.