AECP 1 - All About Layering 2

Happy Wednesday crafty peeps, and thank you for stopping by. Today's post is my submission for the second layering class at Altenew, as part of my AECP journey. This is another free class (you can find it here) full of great instruction and inspiration for using more of Altenew's layering stamp sets. 

There are two cards for this class and I hope you'll agree that they demonstrate the lovely layering of the Build A Flower Rose stamp set and the Kind Reminders stamp and colouring stencil set. 

Card One - Build A Flower Rose

I love the Build A Flower sets. The layering results in a beautiful flower, whichever set you choose, and the matching die(s) makes cutting out a breeze! There are six layers to the rose in this set, giving real depth to the flower. And it looks stunning in any colour. 

I've also used the Pattern Play Diamond background stamp, heat embossed with white embossing powder to give a subtle texture to the base of the card.

As you can see, my ink choices were not all traditional. I wanted to introduce some interest by using an unusual colour in the leaves, to lift the pink and green. I list all the inks I used below.

The sentiment is from the same stamp set, and I stamped it with Versafine black ink. 

A few white sequins from my stash added the final touch.

Card Two - Kind Reminders Set

This is another of my favourite sets - I love colouring with the layered stencils. I've listed the inks used below. 

I stamped and coloured the pink flower directly onto the card base. The orange and yellow blooms were stamped and coloured separately then cut out and mounted on the card, the yellow flower on 3D foam pads for dimension. 

For the background I masked the flower and used Altenew's Grid Stencil to give some interest. The stencil is inked with Mountain Mist ink for a pleasing contrast with the vibrant pinks and yellows of the blooms. 

The addition of a few Blushing Red Nuvo drops and a striking red envelope, stamped with Versafine ink, completes the card. 

Altenew inks used:

Build A Flower Rose 

Flowers: Blush, Rouge, Coral Bliss, Velvet, Coral Berry, Grapevine 

Green leaves: Bamboo, Olive

Blue leaves: Dew Drops, Ocean Wave, Dark Night

Kind Reminders:

Flowers: Fresh Lemon, Honey Drizzle, Coral Bliss, Vineyard Berry, Sunkissed, Orange Cream, Dark Chocolate

Leaves: Parrot, Bamboo, Olive, Moss

Thank you for reading - I hope you enjoyed this submission. If you would like to see some more of my work, you can find me on Instagram and Facebook @PeriMadeIt, or if you would like to follow this blog, scroll to the bottom to hop over to the web version, where you will find a follow button at the bottom of the page.

Until next time, stay safe and keep crafting.

Peri x

AECP 1 - All About Layering 1

Happy Wednesday, crafty peeps! Today I have another of my AECP submissions, for the All About Layering 1 class.

Altenew are particularly well known for their beautiful layering stamps and this class is the first of five FREE classes designed to help you learn how to get great results every time. Every class comprises several lessons, each showcasing a different stamp set, demonstrating the layering technique and offering inspiration for your cardmaking. I recommend checking out these classes, particularly if you are new to layering stamps - you can find this first class here.

For this class I decided to use the same stamp set in different colourways for a pair of cards for twin friends of ours. I chose the Celebrate Us stamp set (a collaboration between Altenew and Pink Fresh Studio), together with the Deco Wallpaper stencil, and a variety of Altenew inks in yellows and peaches (see list below).

I also used a few additional solid layer leaf sprays from the Build A Flower Rose stamp set.

I began by preparing two card bases using the stencil with Misty Morning ink, for a light but interesting background. I used one of these backgrounds 'upside down' to add another point of difference between these two similar cards.

I stamped the flowers six times, three for each card, and followed the layering guide on the back of the stamp packet to stamp the layers. 

Although there is a matching die available for this stamp set, I don't have it yet, so I fussy cut the images with scissors, right on the black stamped line. 

I assembled both cards, letting some of the large images fall over the sides of the card base. I trimmed off the excess and used the trimmings to fill in around the sides of the card. I also stamped the first solid layer of leaves from the Build A Flower Rose set, to give me some extra foliage for the layout, adding some detail to the leaves with a black fineliner pen. 

I popped up the centre flower on each card with some 3D foam squares, to give some dimension.

For the sentiment I used MFT's Scripty Smile Die-namics, which I believe is now retired. For the peach card I cut two from brown card and one from copper card and glued these together to give a thicker die cut word. I repeated this in gold, with additional layers in white, for the yellow card. I lost my tittles (the little dot over the 'i') so I substituted some Nuvo Crystal Drops in Copper Penny and English Mustard, as you can see. 

I finished off with a further sentiment from Avery Elle's Banner Bits stamp set.

Inks

Pink Pearl, Rouge, Warm Sunshine and Firefly

Citrus Burst, Maple Yellow, Orange Cream and Parrot 

Thank you for your time - I really appreciate you stopping by. Why not leave a comment to let me know you were here? 

Until next time, happy crafting.

Peri x

Have 'Yourselfie' a Very Happy Birthday

Morning, crafty peeps - I hope you're having a great weekend. Thought I'd just pop in with a quick post and a fun card.

There's a well-known fact in the crafting world that it is always a challenge to create cards for men. This is not because they're a fussy bunch, but simply that there are far fewer products on the market to inspire us. However, I recently picked up the Picture Perfect Party Animals stamp set from MFT Stamps and this set is perfect for cards for boys and men of all ages. I love the humour of these stamps. 

I chose the partying parrots stamp for this project, and coloured it with a ton of Copic markers, listed below. I wanted a background of tropical leaves so I chose  the Newton's Nook Tropical Leaves stencil and used several Altenew inks to create a layered background. I inked the stencil once with a variety of green inks, then moved the stencil and inked again, making sure to vary the inks I used so that I got some depth. Once I'd done that I decided that the white space left by the stencil was too stark, so I took another light green ink and simply inked over the whole piece, using a blending brush to achieve a smooth finish. This gave me exactly the result I was hoping for.

The sentiment is from the same stamp set and I stamped it with Memento Tuxedo Black ink. If I were to make this card again, I would probably stamp the sentiment at the bottom of the Polaroid frame, rather than on the background, but, hey, there's always a learning opportunity! 

I used the MFT Polaroid Shaker Frame Die-namics die to create a frame for the image, and then popped that up on the card with some 3D foam squares. 

Finally, I created a coordinating envelope from some free papers I had received with a craft magazine.

Copics used:

B00, B12, B14, B16, B24, B26

BG11, BG13, BG15, BG18, BG45

V15, V17, V25

YR07, YR16

YG01, YG17, YG23, YG25

Altenew inks (background):

Parrot, Olive, Shadow Creek

Frayed Leaf

Thank you for your time and I hope you've enjoyed reading.

'Til next time, happy crafting! 

Peri x

AECP Level 1 - Easy Die Cutting Techniques

Well, it has been some time since I set up the blog but I have been really busy in the background, getting ready for my first 'proper' post. 

Every level of the Altenew Educator Certification Programme requires completion of a series of classes, each designed to consolidate and grow your creative card-making skills. As a Level 1 Participant, there are 10 classes to complete, in any order, and I decided my first one would be Easy Die Cutting Techniques. 

Just as a note, you do not have to participate in the AECP in order to take these classes - they can be purchased individually here at the Altenew online store. I had already signed up to several classes before being accepted on the AECP, and I can thoroughly recommend them to anyone wishing to improve and grow their card-making repertoire. 

So, back to my first class. Over the course of six lessons, this class covers the basics of die cutting right through to more creative use of your existing dies to help you stretch your stash. Lesson 4 caught my eye particularly, as it was a technique I hadn't explored very much. I ended up with three cards, each building on the previous idea. 

Card One

Starting with the Dotted Starburst Debossing Cover Die, I used Altenew Silver Lake ink and dragged it very lightly over the raised dots of the die. I use a Spellbinders Platinum 6 die cutting machine for all my die cutting and embossing and found it easiest to create my embossing sandwich 'upside down' for this technique, i.e. I placed my die on the platform, inked side up, gently laid my paper over the top and then placed my embossing mat didn't have to worry about where the die was going to emboss on the paper. I ran the whole thing through the machine and ended up with a nicely embossed image with a hint of colour to define the dots. 

I used this as a light background to my first Christmas card of the year, using Altenew's newly released Holiday Flower stamp set. I stamped the image twice and coloured it with Copic markers. I fussy cut the images, right on the stamped line, and then decided that I wanted to remove one of the flowers from one of the images, so I cut into the image on one of the lines. I used a black Copic marker to go around the cut edges of both images, just to redefine the stamped line. I used a Sakura Gelly Roll pen in Metallic Gold to add the centres of the flowers and highlight lines on the leaves.

I decided to use a piece of vellum for the sentiment, which I stamped in Versamark ink and heat embossed in gold embossing powder. The sentiment was also from the Holiday Flower stamp set and I love the style and font of the sentiments included with this set. 

I wrapped the vellum around to the back of the die embossed piece so that there was no visible adhesive on the front, then matted the die embossed piece onto a piece of gold card and assembled the rest of the card. I added a few bright gold sequins for an added bit of bling.  A handmade gold envelope finished the project off.

Card Two

The inking of the die before embossing really gave some added 'punch' to the pattern, so based on the success of this piece I set about using the technique again with a darker ink - Moss. The darker ink transferred more to the embossed piece outside of the dotted pattern, so I decided to cut a circle from the centre where it had embossed the best and cleanest image and to use this as a basis for another, smaller, card.

I used the Build-A-Flower Stargazer stamp and die set, together with the small flower from the Simple Beauty set. The flowers were inked with a combination of Sunkissed, Orange Cream, Autumn Blaze, Firebrick and Dark Chocolate inks, from the Goldfish Tails Mini Cube Set and the leaves were inked originally with Morning Frost, Evening Gray and Cloudy Night inks. However, the greys were too insipid against the green background (which is a sheet of Hot Off the Press paper, bought many years ago and taken out of retirement for this card) so I added a layer of Frayed Leaf ink over the top of each leaf, which just lifted the colour a little. 

To give a little dimension to the centre circle, I added a circle of fun foam underneath it before attaching to the card base. This is my favourite way of adding dimension to larger pieces as I feel it provides better stability than foam squares or tape. 

The sentiment is from Sentiment Strips 2 and I heat embossed this with white embossing powder over an extra piece of the background paper, so as not to introduce another colour into the card. A few green sequins and a handmade envelope finished this project. 

Here's a close-up of the embossed centre:

Card Three

My final card (and there won't always be so many for one technique, I promise!) was inspired by the previous two but I wanted to produce three layers of interest at once. To do this I used the  Leaf Mix Die Set in three different ways.

I took a piece of watercolour paper and misted it lightly with water. Once this had had a chance to soak up the water and become pliable, I laid it down on top of my cutting platform and placed several of the leaf dies on top of it, then laid the embossing mat and plate on top and ran it through the machine and back again. The damp paper picked up the pattern of the leaves very well. 

Next, I took some of the leaf dies that I had already used and lightly inked these with Moss ink. I laid these on the embossed watercolour paper, careful not to move them, and then ran these through the machine, and back again, in an embossing sandwich. There was a very slight movement but nothing to spoil the piece. I cleaned the ink off the dies and put them to one side, ready for the third use. 

Taking another piece of watercolour paper, I inked a panel with Distress Inks (Bundled Sage, Twisted Citron, Crackling Campfire and Evergreen Bough) and, once dry, used the same dies to cut out several leaves. I adhered these around the embossed panel and trimmed off any overhang, using the trimmed pieces to fill in around the edges. Here's a close-up showing all three textures. 

I stamped a sentiment from Birch Press Lingo Thanks stamp set onto some brown card, and heat embossed this with gold embossing powder, before cutting it out with the co-ordinating die. I matted the panel onto the same brown card and assembled the card, adding a few gold and orange sequins for bling, and finished off with a handmade envelope. 

Gosh! That was a long post! Thank you for your time - I hope you have enjoyed reading and like the results of my first class. 

Until next time, happy crafting

Peri x