Good afternoon! Hopefully today is gong to be a little cooler than it has been as we are heading to a rodeo later today.
School starts again next week - the summer feels as like it has gone on forever and both Mollie and me are ready to get back into our routines.
I have had a break from my Altenew Educators Certification Program but need to get back into it. I am 2 classes away from completing it - well as of today 1 class!!!
Progressive Card Making by Justine Hovey is the latest class I have completed. She discussing many card making techniques and levels that all crafters can achieve. I love this idea because not only can beginners achieve her techniques but it is learning curve leading to becoming more advanced.
Even though I view myself as an advanced card maker I want to demonstrate different levels of experience so I am covering stamping, masking, dry embossing and heat embossing on my designs today. This makes a long blog post so bear with me!! 😊
First card is a Floral card using simple stamping, 1 layer masking and dry embossing:
The card starts as plain cardstock, I have Neenah Solar White for my base and stamping. Green and cream cardstock for my layers.
I stamped the floral stem from the Floral Sprig Stamp Set using Crisp Dye Ink in Jet Black. I stamp twice, once on my cardstock then on to masking paper.
The image is fussy cut from the masking paper, making sure I cut along the outer lines of the image which ensures that when you stamp your next image over it you get a seamless image. I then lay it over the image stamped on cardstock.
Arranging the stamp for my 2nd image so it looks as though there are 2 stems from one branch it is stamped again. I do add masking paper to the stem of the stamp before I ink it so this does not stamp that section on my card.
When I remove the mask my first image looks as though it is in front of the second image. With this stamp it also looks as the the stamped images are 1 image. I had double inked my first image which is why it is darker making it appear nearer than the 2nd image.
I love coloring with alcohol markers and
Altenew Markers are great because, like their inks, they come in coordinating colors so choosing coordinating colors is easy. Once colored I then fussy cut the spring from the cardstock as I want a different background to frame it ad don't own the die.
My background is dry embossed using
Leaf Bed Stencil. To do this you place the stencil over your cardstock and run it through your die cutter. You may need added shims to do this to give more pressure which pushes the stencil into the fibers of the cardstock embossing the stencil pattern in to it.
It does give a very delicate looking pattern that can just be seen on the right photo.
Now to construct my design: I stamped a sentiment from
Sentiment Strips 2 onto cream cardstock and trimmed this to a strip. I want mats on my card so I trim a strip of card so it is 2/8th bigger than my sentiment. My embossed card is trimmed to 5.5in x 4in and a green mat is cut to 5.5in x 4 and 2/8th.
Some clear bubble gems are used to draw the eye to the sentiment.
My second card shows the same techniques but at a more advanced level. I am also showing heat embossing with this card.
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The circles in this image are all flat on the card and are individual circles but I have achieved dimension using masking and shading in my coloring. This is also a great way to make cards using the smaller stamp sets.
To start I stamped the circles from Circle Delights Stamp Set multiple times onto masking paper, these are then fussy cut. Do not use dies for this as you will be left with a white edge around the mask which you don't want.
Once these are all cut I then arrange them onto my cardstock to plan out my pattern. I photographed this to give me a plan. Then I start stamping using Jet Black Crisp Dye Ink. Each circle is covered with a mask as I stamp them.
I do decide to change the plan so that I have a curved image and so I am following the rule of thirds.
Once stamped I removed the masks. Although I see myself as an advance paper crafter I do still make mistakes. Can you see the ones I made here? I can correct this in my next step.
Once again I use alcohol markers to color my images. I did plan on just using yellow and orange but changed my mind and did each size of circle in 2 different colors. This is where you add dimension to the card. I used the Jet Black and Moon Rock
Woodless Colored Pencils to add shading around the circles where they overlap emphasizing the layers giving the illusion of depth.
I also managed to hide my mistakes!
The next stage is using embossing powders. Unfortunately I forgot to photograph this but will explain what I did.
I die-cut the Congrats from
Script Word Dies in black cardstock. Then using
Embossing Ink I pressed the word into the pad, totally covering it in the sticky glue 'ink'. I then covered it in
Crystal Clear Embossing Powder. This needs to be heat set with a heat gun. I repeated these steps 3 times, this gives a thick layer of clear embossing making your sentiment dimensional and shiny as you can see on the second photo.
If you don't have colored cardstock you can also achieve this look with colored embossing powder on white cardstock.
Constructing this card was simple as my image was already done. I layered this with black cardstock and added it to an A2 cardbase using wet glue. My image at mat were trimmed slight smaller so I get the bordered look.
My sentiment was also added with wet glue, embossed items can curl slightly so to make sure it adheres flat I place an acrylic block over the top of it while the glue dries. I scattered a few black iridescent pearls around the sentiment to pull the whole design together.
Thank you for taking time to read my post, I hope I demonstrate techniques from the class in a way it is easy to follow.
I look forward to reading your comments.
