Hello crafty friends! Today I’m sharing a card that I made after participating in Altenew Academy’s Easy Die Cutting Techniques class.

I was inspired by the technique of inlaying a die cut into another piece of paper. This course also taught the technique of using a die cut for dry embossing. I didn’t have an embossing pad to do that technique, but I was inspired to use the inlay technique, and then emboss with an embossing folder. It’s a pretty simple technique, and definitely gives a unique look to a background. I think I’ll definitely be using this again in the near future.

I used the Craft-A-Flower Sulfur Cosmos Layering Dies as my focal point. Since I wanted to inlay the leaves into the background, I needed to figure out the placement of the leaves before I cut them into the background. First, I diecut the bottom layers of the flower so I could figure out the placement of them, then tuckes the leaf dies into place. When I was happy with the layout, I taped down the leaf dies onto my blue background, and then ran it through my diecutting machine. I then used the same dies to cut the leaves out of green cardstock. I adhered the blue cardstock to a piece of white cardstock, and then glued the green leaves into the corresponding spaces. After the glue was dry, I ran the panel through an embossing folder that had a nice leaf pattern, to give the whole background some leafy texture.

I decided the pink cardstock I had selected for the flowers at first was a little too dark, so I picked a lighter one and cut out the flowers a second time. I randomly darkened parts of the petals with a blending brush and some dye ink. I guess I could have done a better job at shading where they should be shaded… maybe there’s a class I can take on that! After assembling the flowers, I curled up the petals a little to give them a little more dimension. I used Versatile Greetings for the “thanks” sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by my blog, I hope you try this fun inlay-then-emboss technique! I appreciate you!

Altenew products used:
Craft-A-Flower: Sulfur Cosmos Layering Die Set
Versatile Greetings Die Set

Hello crafty friends! Today I’m sharing a card that I made after participating in Altenew Academy’s Seasonal Scene Building class by Nichol Spohr.

I must say I was slightly intimidated by this class… I mean… Nichol Spohr was the instructor! I’ve admired her work since I started papercrafting again. But I found the sessions very informative, and not intimidating at all. She shared some good tips and helped me to understand her thought process. She’s a great instructor.

There were 6 lessons in this class. I chose to make a card using the masking techniques that Nichol shared in the first lesson. I love this Goldfish Pond set from Altenew. It was the first set I purchased from Altenew. I have a small garden pond of my own, and have always been drawn to water and fish.

For the first layer, I stamped the center goldfish, the flower, and the underwater plant on the right. I stamped again onto masking paper, cut out the images, and applied the masks. Next I stamped the darker lily pads and the other two fish. I made a mask for the lily pad with the flower, and then finally stamped the last lily pad and the rock/grass cluster.

Before removing the masks, I added the stamps to color the fish, using the Summer Afternoon Crisp Dye Ink Mini cube set. I colored in the rest of the images with Copic markers, using no skill whatsoever! I added a sentiment from the stamp set, masking off part of it. Finally I cut the panel down and added a piece of blue green cardstock as a border, before attaching the panel to an A2 card base. I added some water droplets as bubbles.

I debated making this into a shaker card, but I really wanted to focus on the masking process. We have a saying in our house – “No apologies for food”. This keeps me from being overly critical with myself. “I think there’s too much salt… I should have used a lower temperature… I think the bottom stuck…” I’m adding a new one: “No apologies for cards”, so I won’t be overly critical with my lack of Copic coloring skills, or a misaligned layer, or a couple random smudges. You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit, right?

The course inspired me to practice my masking technique, and to break out my copic markers, two things that I generally avoid at all costs. I enjoyed the lesson on the window cards, as well as the shaker scene. I will definitely use a window in a project very soon. Thanks for stopping by my blog, I appreciate you!

Altenew products used:
Goldfish Pond Stamp Set
Crisp Dye Ink Mini Cube Set – Summer Afternoon

Hello crafty friends! Today I’m sharing a card that I made after participating in Altenew Academy’s Celebration: Stencil Techniques course by Laurel Beard.

This was a fun class, and I really enjoyed combining several of the techniques discussed during this class into this card. In fact, I absolutely love this card, and it’s probably the first card I’ve made for myself, hence the “yay!” sentiment. I just love the watercolor effect that I was able to achieve with the the Blooming Flower Bed stencil set from Altenew.

I wanted the background to be blue, so I flipped over the last stencil, nunmber 3, the one with the leaves, and carefully applied 3 different shades of blue from the Lapis Lazuli mini ink cube set. I used the direct method from ink pad to stencil, pressing down to release some ink, but making sure not to catch any of the stencil cutouts on the ink pad. I randomly added Ultra Marine, Eastern Sky, and Iceberg until I felt I had covered the stencil. Then I misted the stencil with water, let the colors flow together, flipped it back over, and laid it on top of a piece of watercolor paper that I had cut to the stencil size (6×6). I put a piece of paper towel over the top, and pressed lightly, to get the ink off of the stencil and on to the paper. I carefully lifted the stencil off the paper, and thought, there’s a hot mess! But, as they say, you get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit! The results are the first photo above. I cleaned off my stencil, and then placed it on the paper again, this time right side up, so I could blend on the leaves and the flower stems. I used Forest Glades green and Paper Bag.

I went back to stencil number 1 to do the flowers. I smooshed some Warm Sunshine ink onto my craft mat, and then added Distress Crackle Paste in Translucent, to color the paste yellow. I applied this through the stencil in a light layer, and then waited for it to dry. For the last stencil layer, I added yellow and clear Stickles glitter glue through the stencil. I picked part of the design, and cut a 4×5.25 inch rectangle for my card front, layered a piece of green cardstock behind it, and attached it to a white A2 card base.

I just loved how this background came out… very loose and almost Monet-esque. I chose the “yay” sentiment, cut from some green patterned paper, layered with 2 white diecut layers, and offset with another white layer.

The course inspired me to use several differnet stencil techniques, including stamping with the stencil to achieve the watercolor background, and using texture paste which I first colored with ink. Thanks for stopping by my blog, I appreciate you!

Altenew products used:
Bloomin Flower Bed Stencil Set
Fancy Yay Die
Crisp Dye Ink Mini Cube Sets – Lapis Lazuli, Green Fields, Summer Afternoon

Also used:
Distress Crackle Paste, Translucent
Stickles

Hello crafty friends! Today I’m sharing a card that I made after participating in Altenew Academy’s Let it Shine course.

I found this to be an interesting course, and really reminded me of all of the different ways to add shine and sparkle to a card. I may have overdone it on this one, because I used a bunch: hot foiling (hello), silver embossing powder (Sparkle on, Darling), a strip of “glimmer paper”, and finally some highlighting on the flower with a ZIG Wink of Stella brush in clear. I tried to balance all of the sparkle with a matte black card front, a mostly white flower, and the vellum leaves. I’m pretty pleased at how it came out.

Not often do I immediately know what color scheme I want to use with a card, but this one came together in my mind before I even sat down at my desk. For the shine, I wanted to use silver. That made me thing of black paper, with white flowers, to really make it stand out. I wanted to give the flowers a hint of greenish yellow, so I thought of Distress Ink in Shabby Shutters. I’m sure there’s an Altenew ink color that is similar, but it wasn’t in the front of my mind, like the Distress colors are.

I used the Altenew Craft-A-Flower: Sulfur Cosmos Layering Die Set for the flower and the leaves. The set comes with two flowers. I used the smaller one. I die cut all of the pieces with a piece of watercolor paper first. Then I placed the die cuts back into the negative space to hold them, so I could lightly blend some ink onto them with a mini blending brush, staying mainly in the areas that would become the center of the flower. I also used a foam blending tool to lighly apply color to the edges of the petals. Wanting to keep the card on the “clean and simple” side, I used vellum for the leaves. To finish the card off with just a touch more sparkle, I added clear Wink of Stella brush marker highlights along the die creases in the flower petals.

The course inspired me to use a bunch of shine-producing techniques on the same card, in a hopefully balanced way. I used the rounded corner and strip of glitz down the left side of the card that the course instructor demonstrated. I really love the Craft-A-Flower layering dies from Altenew. They go together very easily, as they have a keyhole cutout in the center that helps you line everything up in the right orientation. It couldn’t be easier! The flowers are gorgeous as well, so you just can’t go wrong. One flower is large enough to create a beautiful focal point for your A2 sized card, or use both for a really impressive look!

Thanks for stopping by my blog, I appreciate you!

Altenew products used:
Craft-A-Flower: Sulfur Cosmos Layering Die Set
Versatile Greetings Hot Foil Plate Set
Sentiment Strips 3 Stamp Set
Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Shabby Shutters, Scattered Straw
Tim Holtz Distress Heavystock – Black
ZIG Wink of Stella Brush II – Clear
Deco Foil – Silver
Ranger Detail Silver embossing powder