Masking with layering stamps

I am working my way through the classes for the Altenew Educator Certification Program (AECP) level 2. This card has been inspired by the lessons in the brilliant Masking Unleashed class. I had no idea there were so many ways to do masking. I really enjoyed mixing these stamp sets as using the masking paper to be able to stamp right around those pretty hydrangea blooms. There are so many little tips in this class for the ways to get the best results from masking it is well worth doing.

The stamp sets I combined for this card are Halftone circles and Garden Hydrangea. Fussy cutting around the Hydrangeas was time consuming but I have saved my masks storing them with my stamps so I can use them again and not have to cut them out again. 

I used the following inks for this card:

The leaves - Firefly, Grass Field

The flowers - Pink Diamond, Pinkalicious, Razzleberry

The background - Dew Drops, Caribbean Sky

For the sentiment I used a Heffy Doodle stamp and die set called Rascal alphabetters. I didn't want the letters to get lost in the details of the flowers so unlike the masks for the hydrangeas I cut the masks for the letters using the coordinating dies. This has given them a white kind of halo effect around each letter in contrast the the other masking which as I cut just inside of the outer line of the stamped images has gone right up against the next image.

There was the odd place where due to the layers on layers of masks the stamps did not quite go all the way to the edges but there were brilliant tips for combating this in the class that I was able to use so thing this is some of the most flawless masking I have ever managed and I am so pleased with the result. If you want the tips you will just have to watch the class as I don't want to steal the glory for them :)

I am going to enter this card for the following challenges:

Make my Monday - Spring time

Dare 2 be Artzy - Flowers

Lil patch of crafty friends - Anything Goes

We love stamping - For a lady or girl

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog.

Huge hugs

Amy xx