Altenew Educator Program level 2 - Polychromatic class

 This class was very interesting and I learned quite a few new techniques.  I think my favourite card is maybe the bowtie one because of the rainbow effect with the ties and I do enjoy a card with lots of white space even though I don't always make them successfully.  I often like a busy card but then every once in a while I like to slip in a clean and simple card with lots of white and this one just worked out perfectly for that category.

This card for my monochromatic challenge was a labour of love.  The pieces are left overs from the dodec die that I had made for another class and I inked them in different shades of green and then glued them all to the front of the green card panel in a random pattern so that it didn't look too uniform and was a little more free looking.  I like the way it turned out after all the glueing. 

This was my first attempt at a faux watercolour look and I wasn't too sure of it at first, but as I kept going I liked it more and more.  This technique was completely new to me and outside the box for me so I am glad I got to try it and I will be making more like this for sure.

I love the way this one turned out too and I am torn it it may actually be my favourite after all.  There are so many different layers to it and I used all the same colours in the flowers as in the background, but I watered them down some and used lots of splatter and really played with it.  It was really fun to make.

I chose to go black and white for the flower on my rainbow background card for some contrast.  I quite like the starkness of the white flower.  The water colour background was really fun to make and I am starting to get more comfortable with watercolour effects thanks to these classes.

Altenew Educator Program level 2 - Creative Watercolour Media

 

I absolutely loved this class and all of the techniques that I was able to practice while taking it.  While the techniques were not new to me, the ideas and inspiration had me practicing in all different ways with the mediums used.  I had all the supplies on hand for each of the demonstrations without having to substitute for different items. 

This hydrangea card was by far my favourite from the class.  I love the way the embossing held the watercolour in place and the different shades of purples and blues in the flower made it look like the ones we had in our yard last year.  I also liked the way my blue background turned out.  I am NOT a good watercolour artist and this class made me step out of my comfort zone a lot and I am happy with the results.  It was all done with dye reindeers.

I am not sure that I had ever really painted with shimmer ink sprays before, or if I have, it has been a really long time.   I chose three colours for this one and blended them together and added some splatter.  The copper embossing powder made it feel like a sunset to me.

These cards practiced more on technique with different types of inks.  It is sure interesting the different results with the different ink types.  Some are so much more intense than others.

And finally these cards with an emboss resist background were so much fun and way different than what I normally produce for cards.  I quite liked the end result and thought it looked like a cool wallpaper in the end.  There are several areas that bled into one another but I just went with it and like the way it turned out.  It was such a busy background that I thought the vellum was a perfect way to soften it a little. 

SOS - All things leafy

 

This week at Shopping our Stash we are celebrating all things leafy - trees, flowers, weeds whatever.  I was on a tropical kick as we are in the midst of a winter storm that is to bring us about 20cms or more of snow at the time of writing this.  We so need the precipitation, but with cover lockdowns and snow storms I am dreaming of travel and Hawaiian islands where it is always green.  Play along with us, will you?

Altenew Educator Level 2 - With a Twist

This is my third class for level 2 called With a Twist and it has all kinds of twists and turns in it.  I tried some new techniques and tried my hand at editing my stamps too look like something that it wasn't meant to be. I changed my flower stamp into a butterfly. I just thought from the moment I got that stamp that it looked like a butterfly more than a flower, even though it is definitely a flower.  I do apologize for the fact that I do not know how to draw and I am extremely terrible at it.  But hey, as long as you can tell it is a butterfly - mission accomplished lol.  I am also not good at photo editing and could not for the life of me get the strip off of my second photo and then couldn't get it off my blog.  So sorry for my unsavvy computer skills.

The untraditional colour combo for this card is growing on me the more I look at it.  I do love how sparkly the flowers turned out with some silver embossing powder.  The leaves also have teal embossing powder to stir things up a bit.

This shaker card is actually 5 shaker cards in one as I used different shaker items for each set of leaves.  They range from beads to glitter and everything in between.  All are different shades of teal to go along with the ink blending from lightest to darkest as well.  I glued the cut out leaves on the inside to change up the card a bit and glued a continuation sentiment on the inside so that it is like a two part card.

This card is following a different style by cutting it horizontally through the die cut word so that it opens like a half door.   It's kind of a fun look and a new kind of card for me.  I found that I needed to build up the hello die word with 4 thicknesses of paper so that it kind of closed in place like a puzzle piece.

I really love the look of this card mixing a modern look with a vintage look and I think it might be my favourite that I made throughout this class.  I cut a bunch of leaves and glued them to my card base to give a white on white lacy look in the background to try and get a vintage look about it.  I went with a bold stripe and shimmery hello for the modern look with the contrasting pattern from the solid white.  I love the look of it.

This last card using die cuts was just a fun and whimsical looking one and felt so different from the previous card.  I love having a variety of types of cards in my stash and ones that don't all follow the same structure and pattern.  I also played with some watercolours and tried to get a good oceany look to the background. 

 

Altenew Educator Level 2 -In the mood for colour

 

This class is exactly what its name sounds like...colour.  I loved everything about the challenge of making these cards in the predominant colour of each topic.  I tried to keep as much of each card in the colour of the class as I could to the point of overwhelming monochromatic, but I think most of them worked out quiet well.  I love the sky and tent on this card and I think I will be making more of these ones in the future.  I have a feeling they will make good masculine birthday type cards with a few tweaks.

I tried to embrace a romantic feel with this card with the lacy border and the doily.  This was my first use of this particular stamp and I am absolutely in love with it.  The black dotted shading on this stamp is just dreamy.

I love the ombre look for the trees and the sky in opposite types of green for this card.  I turned out super fun in the end and I quite like how the progressions of the ombre look like layers to give it some depth.  I also love the little stars and splatters in they sky.  It is a similar effect to the blue tent card but looks completely different even though the technique is the same.

This yellow card is a little too much in my mind but was fun to make.  There are so many layers in the flowers and there is some lattice washi tape underneath all of them that I sprayed with shimmer spray but it is hard to see.  I used the same effect under the HI but it kind of disappears under the flowers.

I really love this pink card.  It is one of my favourites and I will for sure be doing this again and again for other projects.  I did the ombre effect again on a larger panel than my card front and then I cut out the leaves upside down on the ink blended paper.  I flipped it right side up to glue it to the card so that the blending matched but went in the opposite direction.  I love the look of the light on the dark and the dark on the light.

I was on a blending rampage by the time I got to the orange card so I kept it going to make it look like a sun setting summer sky.  I took the foliage stamp and tried to make it look more like trees in the distance than just leafy flower foliage.

The final bonus card is my favourite from the class though.  This stamp set showed up at just the perfect time to make a rainbow stack of books.  I masked off all of the books into piles to make it look like she has a ton of books to get through.  Then I added the rainbow to the book she is reading to continue on the rainbow theme.  I just knew I had to have this stamp set the day it came out as that little girl reminds me so much of what my daughter looked like when she was younger and she always had a book in front of her  nose.  

Altenew Educator Level 2 - Beyond Basic Backgrounds

Hello again....spring is here and it has been so unseasonably warm where we live that we have absolutely no snow left.  It is so unusual but so very nice to have a really early spring.  Since I last posted I passed my level 1 challenge for the Altenew Educator Certification Program.  It is super exciting and now I am plugging along on level 2.

                                     

The first class of 10 I am doing for level 2 is Beyond Basic Backgrounds.  I really enjoyed this class and loved experimenting with some of my products that I had in my room.  This first card I made is one of my most favourite out of all the cards I have done so far.  I used some glossy accents on my fish so they look like they are wet.  I also die cut the fish in grey so that it looks like a shadow of them swimming in the pond.  I made a stencil with the lily pads and ink blended them in green ombre and then stamped them with white embossing powder.  Then I water coloured the water in an ombre as well to give it the same sort of appearance as the leaves.

My next cards really tested my math skills for the perfect spacing class.  I ended up making a template and figuring out the colours on the template to give it a good colour spaced balance. Then I stamped it out on several pieces of paper after aligning everything on my Misti so that I now have several backgrounds to use on future projects.  

Foiling with good results is a real struggle with me.  This card uses black foil and had to be my most frustrating card of the bunch to get a good result.  There were lots of fails before getting this one to work.  I can not figure out what I am doing wrong with my foil papers.  I wonder if they are something that loses effectiveness as they get older or if it is just me??

I played along with the matte water colour resist but had to do it with my own technique as it appears that we can't purchase waxed freezer paper where I live.  I tried using our waxed paper for baking here but it is not nearly the thickness or texture of the one used in the class.  I do still love the results even though I couldn't use the die cut for a second card as our wax paper is just literally wax on the finest/lightest weight paper ever.

The bleaching technique was super fun and I like the look I had with the ink blending and the stencil that I chose.  I really like the stencil look with the giraffe as well.  They seem to complement each other perfectly.  The vellum also worked out well to cover up the pattern just enough that you can see it but still focus on the image without it getting lost in the background.

And last but not least another card with some inlaid die cutting with layered die cutting to complement it a bit and add some dimension.  I love the reflective look of the silver base paper in this card and the coordinating silver glitter paper for the "you' die cut.

This week's challenge at Shopping our Stash is here comes Peter Cottontail...we are to use something Easter or bunny or Passover related for your project...I chose a bunny and targeted some old school basic grey paper to make a chocolatey easter eggy look...I hope you play along with us!

The Rainbow Connection - SOS

 

This week's challenge at Shopping our Stash is all about rainbows.  I have been on a bit of a rainbow card kick the last little bit...once you make one with these rainbow dies, you have to make several to use up all of the extra pieces that making one "proper" rainbow leaves you...so here are all the creations that I came up with to get one ROYGBIV rainbow - which I gave away before taking a picture...ooops.  Play along with us, will you?