Painting with inks and sprays

I am here with my next card for the Altenew AECP level 2. This is my fourth class for level 2 and I am loving getting back into the AECP again. This call is called Creative Watercolor Media class. I saw this and thought it was going to be all about watercolour paints.....I was very wrong! This is such a great class getting you to really stretch your crafty stash and see the potential of what you have. For this card I have combined some of the lessons.

I really like the graphic nature of the Wallpaper Art stamps and wanted to use the technique I had learnt from this class about painting with my Crisp dye inks to give it a bit more of a watercolour delicate feel to it. I stamped the flower onto water colour paper and then embossed it with Gold Wow! embossing powder. Then I started painting with Pink Diamond crisp dye ink adding in more shade and depth with Fuchsia crisp dye ink. I love the way this painting with inks turned out. I also gold embossed one of the leaf sprays from the same stamp set and then cut it up to give me smaller branches of leaves to spread across behind the flower. 

For the background I had so much fun. I had never thought of using the metallic shimmer sprays like water colours before. I cut a piece of water colour card stock to size then covered it in water. I took my Dusk metallic shimmer Ink spray and sprayed it on the background. I wasn't that happy with the way it looked so I added more water and brushed it spreading it like paint. Then I sprayed it again. I left that to dry before taking the spray top off and flicking the tube over the paper which gave me some even darker dots and I think a lot more depth to the back ground. I just love the way the whole background sparkles. I think I NEED more of these sprays!

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

Avenue 613 - Anything goes with optional twist April showers (I think the ink splattering looks like rain)

Lil patch of crafty friends - Anything Goes

Alphabet Challenge - B is for Blooms

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

Huge hugs

Amy xx

I appreciate you

 I am back again with my card for my third class for the Altenew AECP level 2. This card is from the Color your day class. This class has made me buy a colour wheel, which I think is going to be a great addition to my creative process. I have known about the colour wheel but never thought about having one by my side to be able to just quickly refer to. I absolutely LOVE colour and am a big visual person swatching all my stash so I can see how it is going to look together before I start making. This class was so much fun and I feel like I learnt a lot.

For my card I wanted to use a stamp set which is quite new to me the Altenew Garden Delights stamp set. I have to say that this set is beautiful. It was a dream to line up and I really like the little sentiments that come with it.

I wanted to use the complimentary colours for this creation while adding in the black to make them pop. I used the 70,20,10 theory where I had red for the 70, green for the 20 and black for the 10.

For the flowers I used the following Altenew Crisp dye inks:

Pastel Sunrise, Canyon Clay and Burnt Red. They are all in the Martian Terrain ink set.

The leaves are Frayed Leaf and forest Glades which are both in the Green Fields ink set.

I used the coordinating dies to cut all my leaves and flowers out.

I hand drew the black frame in and added the black centres for the flowers with Nuvo Black Board vintage drops. For a bit more red I used the splatters in the Inky Bouquet stamp set. 

To finish this card off I cut a strip of black card and embossed the sentiment from the Garden Delights set in white super fine Wow! embossing powder.

I am entering this card for the following challenges:

Crafting Happiness - Anything Goes

Through the Craft room Door -  Anything Goes

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog.

Huge hugs

Amy xx

Bleaching with water and it is beautiful!

 

I am back with my next card for the Altenew AECP level 2. 

For this card I took my inspiration from the Beyond Basic Backgrounds class. I have to say I have been crafting for many years now but I absolutely loved this class! There were so many tips and techniques that I could learn from and I had so much fun making and playing with the different techniques.

But my favourite was the idea of bleaching with water. Why oh why have I not done this before?? 

I just LOVE the way it stretches your stamps as well as giving this subtle but beautiful result. I am also so impressed with how well it has kept the fine detail that is in the Altenew Quaint Blooms stamp set. I was so sure it was going to bleed over the edges and give a sort of fuzzy look. For the record you can get that look if you add more water to your stamp. It gives a different but equally beautiful look.

For this card I first blended Blueprint sketch, mermaid lagoon and salvaged patina distress oxide inks all over my piece of watercolour card stock. Then using my stamping platform I lined up the Quaint blooms stamp where I wanted it and then used a sponge to apply water to the stamp. I stamped with the water about 4 times to get these images to appear this clearly. Once I had that beautiful background I did not want to cover it up too much so added the Painted Encouragement stamp set which I embossed with Gold super fine Wow! embossing powder. Before finishing it off with a few sparkly gems.

I hope you can try this technique out for yourself and I can really recommend taking the class to find out all of the other hints and techniques :D

I am entering this card for the following challenges:

Through the craft room door - Anything Goes

Pammies inky pinkies - Anything Goes

Thank you so much for visiting my blog

Huge hugs

Amy xx

 

Beautiful Details

I am so happy to be able to say that I have made it through Level 1 of the Altenew AECP and so now am moving onto level 2. There are so many amazing classes to work through for this level 2 certificate I wasn't sure where I wanted to start so I have gone in alphabetical order :D 

So my first creation for you is from all my learning in the brilliant Beautiful Details class. If you have not seen Altenew have a whole range of great online craft classes where you can learn so many tips and techniques to use in your crafting. You can find them all HERE and there are some free ones if you want to see what the classes are like so what have you got to lose??

I had so much fun making this card. I was so inspired by the idea of mixing up the media I use to colour that I went all in and for this card I have used Copics, Faber-Castell pencils and Altenew watercolours. I am not sure why I haven't combined the mediums I use before now.

I am so happy with the depth and detail that this had added to this beautiful Altenew Tulip stamp set.

I stamped my images on watercolour paper as I new I wanted to use the Altenew watercolour essentials set. I wanted to try and keep some of that watercolour lose look so I did some second generation stamping with Versafine Smokey gray ink to give a really light outline for a no line colouring look.

I started by using water colours to give a base and some depth. I followed that with using some pencils to add some more texture and detail. To finish the colouring and add even more depth I also added some copics into the mix. Lastly I added the splatters with the watercolours and then the sentiment that is in the Tulip stamp set.

I hope this helps inspire you to mix up your colouring and add in details to make your stamped images your own and give that truly handmade touch to your projects. I have no doubt that I will be using the many techniques I learnt in this class over and over again. I am totally inspired.

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

Addicted to stamps - Make your mark

Penny's paper crafty challenge - Anything goes

Crafty Gals challenge - Add a flower

Huge hugs to you all 

Amy xx

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

AECP level 1 final challenge for level 1 - Part 2

 

Hello again 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 a long blog so I have split it into two, showing 2 cards from each set in each post so to see the first two cards from each set please see my previous post and in this post I will also show the packaging I created for each set.

To recap. 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 needed to select 3 components from all of the amazing classes I did in level 1 to influence my card sets.

- Both sets should have a similar and cohesive theme but not be replicas of each other.

- Create the packaging for each set.

- Use something recycled within the sets.

Moving onto card number 3 for both sets, I decided to use one of the mini stamps and went for raining hearts. This video shows you how I made the cards.

For the feminine card version I used Puffy Heart and Rose Quartz inks and scattered the nuvo drops rather than having them evenly lined up. I also changed up the layout.

For the last card in each set I created my own background using the Love you so mush stamp set. I started by stamping the largest mushrooms. I did my backgrounds in the lightest ink colours so for the masculine set I used Sand Dunes and the feminine one I used Rose Quartz.

Then added in some of the smaller mushrooms.

Before filling in with the smallest heart stamps.

TOP TIP: When creating a background pattern start with your largest stamps first and don't be afraid to go over the edges of your card.

After that I created a two tone rectangle for my sentiment to sit on. For the feminine one I used Rose Quartz and then Puffy heart inks. For the masculine one I used Dew Drops and then Aqualicious ink.

To get this effect I took the ink pads direct to the card swiping them across the card where I wanted them.

My sentiments for this card I used the thanks from the halftone circles stamp set, which I stamped in Jet black and then die cut. I combined the thanks with a couple of the sentiments from the Love you so mush stamp set. I just the "so" part of the "love you so" sentiment so I took my scissors to the sentiment and cut the "so" off making it easy to use on its own. However if you do not want to cut your stamps apart then you can use some washi tape to mask off the parts of the sentiment you do not want to stamp or wipe the ink off of the part of the stamp you don't want.

Once I knew what I wanted for the sentiment and had all my pieces for my cards done I again used my tip of placing all of the pieces to see which way I thought they looked best before sticking them down.

Once I was happy with my layout I moved it to the stamp platform and stamped my newly formed "So mush" sentiment where I wanted it.

Next I fixed the 2 tone rectangle to the card and edged the rectangle and the card with the Altenew fine liner.

To finish the cards I stuck the "Thanks!" sentiment onto the two tone rectangles

For the feminine version I put the two tone rectangle in the centre of the card and made it a portrait layout rather than a landscape one.

So my final sets look like this.

I think keeping the same colours and stamp sets has made the sets both look nice and cohesive. It also shows how just few stamp sets can be used in many different ways.

My masculine set:

And my feminine set:

Now for the packaging I have made a little video to show how I brought these together recycling packaging from my Altenew stamps and a cardboard box :)

I have really enjoyed this challenge and trying to think outside of the box for the designs and packaging. I hope you like what I have created and feel inspired. I have learned so much from doing this Level 1 and am looking forward to hopefully taking on level 2. If you would like to have a go at the the AECP yourself then you can find out all the details HERE.

Huge hugs to you all

Amy xx