AECP level 1 final challenge for level 1 - Part 1

 

Hello you lovely people :)

Thank you so much for taking the time to come and see my blog. I am so happy to say that I am now getting around to completing my final challenge for the Altenew Educators Certification Program (AECP). This is going to be a long blog so I am going to split it to show 2 cards from each set in this post and my next post will show the final 2 cards and the packaging.

For my final challenge I have been asked to create a his (masculine) and a hers (feminine) set of cards. Each set should have 4-6 cards in the set. I could pick the theme and as I think we can all do with sending more cards to let people know we are thinking of them these days I have gone for a general encouragement theme for my sets.

I needed to select 3 components from all of the amazing classes I did in level 1. I have used many of the techniques from the classes but the main 3 I decided to focus on are:

- Let it shine I mean who doesn't love a bit of sparkle and shine. Plus some sparkle just makes you smile and I wanted to show that sparkle can work for a masculine card not just feminine ones .

- Irresistible inking techniques I really enjoyed this class and found that some of the tips about using my ink pads in different ways were so useful and make the most of my crafting ink stash.

- Clean and simple boutique cards I am a clean and simple style crafter generally but some times felt that some of my creations were too simple, so this class was great for me. I got a lot of ideas for leaving the negative space to make the main focal point really pop.

To keep both sets should have a similar and cohesive theme but not be replicas of each other. To do this I decided to limit the number of stamp set I used and stick to 5 coloured inks for each set. For each design I did one in the colours I have picked for the feminine set and then changed up the layout and the colours to be the colours I have picked for the masculine set.

I also was challenged to create the packaging for each set and then to use something recycled within the sets.

So with all that in mind I decided to first pick my colours.

TOP TIP: I like to swatch all of my inks and this is a brilliant way to be able to workout which inks will look good together. I like to use 3 or 5 colours to mean that I have some variation in a set but not too much that they won't look like a cohesive set.

For the feminine set I went for these 5

- Puffy Heart

- Rose Quartz

-Lavender Fields

- Deep Iris

- Citrus Burst

For the masculine set I went for the following inks:

- Dew Drops

- Aqualicious

-Galactic Stream

- Sand Dunes

- Rocky Shore

This little video shows the process for making the mushroom cards that I did as my first cards for each set.

For the card in the masculine set I decided to not use the masking technique and instead to put the circle in the centre of the card. I used the same tip of lining up my mushrooms before I stuck them down. This time I like how it looked with the 3 mushrooms so used all 3.

I also put the nuvo drops in a more ordered way around the edge of the circle rather than the scatter on the feminine card version.

This is the finished masculine version and I used the following inks:

- Sand Dunes for the base colour of the mushrooms

- Rocky Shore for the accents on the mushrooms

- Dew Drops for the circle

- Jet Black for the text

Card number 2 in each set I wanted to focus just on the Half tone circles stamp set. I made a rough plan of where I wanted my dots to fall across my cards. Again I wanted the masculine and feminine versions to look similar but not be the same. I did a bit of practicing on scrap paper for how the circles might work using the different sizes and colours of inks before getting another two 6'x4' card blanks out to do my final cards on. I started by stamping the thanks sentiment in the set and stamping it and embossing it in gold embossing powder. Then I die cut the thanks using the coordinating die set.

For the feminine card I used The following four ink colours:

- Puffy Heart

-Lavender Fields

- Deep Iris

-Citrus Burst

I did a jumbled line of the circles across the centre of the card roughly a third of the way up from the bottom. I mixed the sizes of the dots and the colours of the inks making sure I only used a little of my darkest colour (Deep Iris) so it did not overpower the design.

I used the Altenew fine liner to again define the edges of the card. then stuck the "Thanks" sentiment so that it looks like the largest yellow circle is highlighting it.

For the masculine version I used all 5 of the ink colours. This time I focused the circles on the right hand side of the card, getting fainter and more spread out as they got more to the left of the card. I stamped some of the circles so that they go over the edge of the card giving a more random look and some more interest to the layout.

Then I added the "Thanks" sentiment in the bottom right corner. Then I finished it by again edging the card with an Altenew fine liner but I Stopped the line where the circles went over the edge of the card.

I hope you have enjoyed these first cards for each set. Please see my next post to see the last 2 cards for each set and see what they all look like together :)

Huge hugs to you all

Amy xx