Altenew Educators Certification Program Level 2 - Beyond Basic Backgrounds

 Good afternoon! The sun is shining and it actually feels warm when you are in it.

I completed and passed my AECP Level 1 so I'm back today with the first class of my level 2. Beyond Basic Backgrounds by Lydia is filled with great lessons and I have loved the different techniques she taught.

I chose to show case 2 or these techniques, the first one is a DIY stencil:

Using Scribbled Flowers Dies, I chose one flower die and cut this multiple times into scratch card which gave me a a floral stencil. I then took this one step further, using a pencil I traced through the DIY stencil on to a second piece of scratch card. This gave me the positions of the flowers so I could add leaves in between. I die cut the leaves into the second piece of card so I have a stencil with leaves.

I then taped the floral stencil to a piece of 4x5.5in card stock and inked through the stencil. I repeated this with the leaves stencil. Once the ink was dry I used the coordinating stamps, versamark ink and clear satin embossing powder to give a subtle image of each flower. This was added to a cream A2 card base with foam tape.

Using the green ink I inked all over a piece of white card. I then die cut this with Happy Die and stamped the Halftone Happy stamp with versamark and embossed it with the same powder as my floral design.

Using foam squares I added this to my card. Anniversary was stamped in black ink, cut into a strip and added to the 'Happy'.

I finished the card with some sparkly gems.

My second card used the Matt Watercolor Resist technique. 

I die cut Ornate Cover die into a folded piece of freezer paper. I then laid these onto  A2 pieces of white watercolor cardstock. Lydia uses a Minc machine to melt the wax from this onto the card which holds the paper in place. I couldn't get my machine to melt this so I used my heat press - the higher temperature worked!

Next I used my watercolor paints to add color all over the piece of card, left this to dry then very carefully lifted the freezer paper. This leaves a matt version of the die pattern on the card, a similar effect to emboss resist but without the shine embossing powder gives.

I added this and a color coordinating mat to a white card base.

 I didn't want to cover much of the pattern so I die cut a circle from white card and stamped this using the Mini Hello Stamp set. So this stood out I inked the edges of the circle, and adhered it to the card with foam squares.

Finally I added a few coordinating enamel dots.

As I had 2 die cut pieces of freezer I repeated the card in a blue but faded the paint towards the bottom corner:

Supplies used:

Altenew Scribbled Flower Dies and Stamps

Altenew Ornate Cover Die

Altenew Mini Hello Stamp Set

Altenew Happy Die

Altenew Halftone Happy Stamps

Altenew Inks:

    Jet Black

    Forest Glades

    Deep Iris

    Midnight Violet

    Ocean Wave

Other Inks:

    Picked Raspberry Distress Ink

    Bundled Sage Distress Ink

    Versamark

Altenew Watercolor 24 pan set

Arteza Metallic Watercolor Paints

Hero Arts Satin Pearl Embossing Powder

Neenah Solar White 110lb Cover

Fog Grey Cardstock

Cream 300gsm Cardstock

Bristol Smooth Cardstock

Watercolor Cardstock

Crystal Gems

Enamel Dots

Glue, Foam tape, Foam Squares

Thank you for stopping by I hope you like what you see if so please leave a comment to let me know.