Alas, I have finished all 10 of the courses within the Level 1 Altenew Educator Certification Program. 🎉 Yay! 🎉 Level 1 courses have been alot of fun and I've got a whole new stash of cards to "shop" from whenever I need to give a card to a loved one or friend! Now that I've finished all 10 courses, I've been issued a final challenge and must complete this before moving on to the Level 2 courses.
For this final challenge, I needed to...
- Create a his & her set of 4-6 cards each, including coordinating gift packaging
- Ensure the cards have a cohesive theme
- Select any 3 components from the ACEP Level 1 courses & explain usage
- Use one recycled element on a set or it's packaging
The 3 components/techniques that I used from the following Level 1 courses are...
- All About Layering: from this course, I practiced the technique of layering different stamps together to create one image. The Peony Bouquet Stamp Set worked beautifully for this technique. I also used vellum to create dimension and give the cards a cohesive look.
- Easy Ink Blending Techniques: I loved getting inky and kept the card designs cohesive by using the same 3-4 colors throughout each of the his & her cards. I ink blending directly on white cardstock as well as through stencils to create the card backgrounds.
- Let It Shine: Throughout the cards, I used all things shiny! I love using embossing powders on stamped images to create extra shine, sparkle and shimmer. I also used small tiny stars to create a cool shaker card as well as a quickie glue pen and prisma glitter for extra sparkle.
I used the following Crisp Dye Ink Mini Cube Sets as color inspiration for my cards. My favorite colors are blues, greens, reds and pinks so they were perfect shades to refer to. You'll also see my notes on what I wanted to do for each cards.
BIRTHDAY CARD SETS FOR HIM & HER
CARDS FOR HIM - STAMPS & DETAILS
I knew I wanted to use blues, greens and golds along with the following stamps and stencil.
(Click the picture to view more details on the Altenew website.)
HIS CARD #1
To create this background, I ink blended, using Tumbled Glass, Mermaid Lagoon and Prize Ribbon distress oxide inks with a blending brush to create a "sky" background. Using the row of trees from the Wanderlust set, I stamped it on vellum using VersaFine black ink and clear embossing powder. I set it with a heat tool. Then I used the mountain stamp as a template to cut the same shape out of gold foil. I layered the pieces together and them adhered it to the inky background with foam tape.
TIPS: Whenever I'm going to use embossing powder on a piece of vellum, I always brush it first with a little bit of cornstarch. There are tools out there that have powder/brush combined but I find this option much less expensive and more effective. Cornstarch is your friend. 👍 Also, instead of using VersaMark (clear sticky ink for use with embossing powder) with black embossing powder. I used VersaFine black ink (which is very sticky) with clear embossing powder. I find that it gives your embossed image a more crisp look without the errant black specs from black embossing powder.
HIS CARD #2
For this card, I used a hot foil plate called Abstract Triangles. I heated up the plate, added gold foil and then pressed it onto a piece of white cardstock. I then cut another piece of white cardstock using the same hot foil plate, ink blended several of the triangles and added on a bit of gold shimmer paint. Then I placed them onto the gold foiled paper in various spaces. To tie in more gold, I stamped the words 'you are awesome' onto a strip of vellum using VersaMark ink, heated it with gold embossing powder, wrapped it around the prepared card front and then adhered it to a piece of gold foil. I love how this card came out!
TIP: To ink blend on the small triangles, I placed a piece of rolled up washi tape underneath. It totally helped hold the pieces down so I could ink blend them without them scooting around my table.
HIS CARD #3
To start, I used the Sketched Lines stencil and ink blended using Tumbled Glass, Mermaid Lagoon and Prize Ribbon distress oxide inks with a blending brush. Using a strip of vellum, I stamped the word celebrate with VersaMark and gold embossing powder. I then set it with a heat tool. I wrapped the vellum around the ink blended card front. Then I wrapped it with blue twine multiple times. Using gold foil paper, I stamped the birthday sentiment using VersaMark and white embossing powder and set it with a heat tool. Then I cut it out using a banner die cut and adhered it with foam tape and embellished it using gold glitter gems.
TIP: I used the Wendy Vecchi Make Art Stay-tion to hold down my stencil with magnets so that it didn't shift while ink blending on the white cardstock underneath.
HIS CARD #4
For this card, I wanted to do some ink blending to create a cloudy sky. I used the three blue colors used above and a cloud stencil and layered the three colors onto white cardstock. I added the sentiment to the top corner of the card using white embossing powder. And then used a Quickie Glue Pen to adhere tiny stars in the shape of the 'little dipper'. I then stamped the tree image onto vellum using VersaFine black ink and clear embossing powder. I wrapped it around the prepared card front and then adhered it to gold foil paper.
TIP: I didn't want to have a straight edge on the vellum strip for this card, so I just tore the edges off. Vellum tears really easily to give a shaggy look.
HIS CARD #5
This card was fun to make. I cut strips of paper and ink blended on them using distress oxides. I wanted to alternate the blue colors on this card instead of arranging them with gradient shading. I took a piece of white cardstock and background stamped the word 'friend' with a light grey color. I stamped the birthday sentiment in the center and then poured tiny gold stars on top. To create the shaker part, I used a piece of acetate and adhered it to a white cardstock die cut frame. Using foam tape, I placed it on top of the stars and prepared stamped cardstock. Edit: I had initially placed the shaker portion directly to the card front but I felt like the card needed more gold. So I unstuck the shaker portion, backed it with gold foil and then re-placed it onto the card front. Voila...much better!
TIP: Any time I create a shaker card, I use a smooth brush and apply some cornstarch onto the acetate. I apply a nice coat and then brush off the excess. This helps lessen the "insides" of the shaker card sticking to the acetate.
CARDS FOR HER - STAMPS & DETAILS
I knew I wanted to use various shades of pink and silver along with the following stamps and stencils.
(Click the picture to view more details on the Altenew website.)
HER CARD #1
I love this Peony Bouquet stamp set. I particularly like this stamp set because the flower is gorgeous. This flower image is made up of 4 different stamps which makes it super easy to color because you can just use different ink pad colors on each different stamp. For this card, I started with applying Spun Sugar, Kitsch Flamingo and Pickled Raspberry distress oxide inks with a blending brush onto the stencil, only applying ink in the corners of the white cardstock. I then stamped a couple of peonies onto white cardstock, using two of the stamped images to create the shaded pink areas on the flower. I then stamped the outline image onto vellum with StazOn jet black. I repeated the process for the leafs. I used a quickie glue pen to glue the vellum onto the images, lining up the outline and colored images very easily. I fussy cut the flowers and leafs and then placed them onto a piece of sparkly glitter paper that I tied with silver string before adhering it to the prepared stencils card front with foam tape.
TIP: Whenever I need to layer and stick vellum to white cardstock, I try to apply glue to the lines of the stamped images or underneath areas that are colored. This helps to "hide" the glue marks that are visible through the vellum.
HER CARD #2
I recently received this stamp set and was really surprised. Altenew sent me a personalized flower stamp set to celebrate their 8th anniversary. (Thank you so much!) To prepare the card base, I cut a piece of masking paper the same size as the card base. Then I cut a circle out of that masking paper and stuck it to the card base. Using my ink blending brushes, I blended the pink-dark pink colors into the circle. Once I was satisfied with the shading, I peeled back the masking paper and revealed a very pretty shaded circle for my flower to sit next to. I used the stencils to color the leaf images and then used alcohol markers to color in the 8th anniversary floral image. To add some additional sparkle, I used my quickie glue pen and prisma glitter on the middle of the big flower and tiny flowers.
TIP: I keep my prisma glitter in a small round 8oz. plastic container. It is shallow and wide enough to catch any excess glitter that falls off whatever I'm applying glitter to. I also use a tiny wooden spoon to sprinkle the glitter so that my fingers aren't getting glitter on them.
HER CARD #3
For this card, I ink blended using this pretty stencil with three different colors. I cut out and centered a piece of silver foil paper over it afterwards. See the below tip on how I added the sentiment to a strip of vellum. For the leafs, I colored in only the centers of them using the coordinating leaf stencil. I then stamped another piece of vellum with the branch stamp with VersaFine black ink and clear embossing powder and then fussy cut it in order to lay them on the prepared leafs. I finished this card of with some itty bitty sparkles.
TIPS: Using a Misti stamping tool, I can easily not use parts of a stamp. As you can see below, the word 'sending' is part of a longer stamp. I used washi tape to hold the part of the stamp that I didn't want out of the way. Another tip is on cleaning stencils after using ink. I use alcohol in a small spray bottle. The alcohol cleans away the ink and dries very quickly.
HER CARD #4
This card was fun and challenging at the same time. I used masking paper and cut out an oval, placed it on a white cardstock and then proceeded to ink blend the entirety of it. I love the reveal after peeling off the making paper. Then using masking paper, I stamped the peony and leaf images several times. I cut out each flower and leaf from the masking paper and used that to overlap the images onto a piece of vellum. I love being able to layer images on cards! Afterwards, I needed to figure out how to attach the vellum to the prepared card front. I grabbed the frame which was a by-product from card #3's silver foil paper rectangle and put foam tape on it to pop it up. That gave me plenty of room to hide adhesive to stick the vellum to the card front. After that, I decorated the card with two additional flowers/leafs.
TIP: StazOn and vellum work together like magic! To be honest, I forgot that I had a StazOn ink pad. The vellum piece you see below with the flower images stamped on them is the 3rd one that I created. The first two were stamped with VersaFine black onyx. I kept smearing them. Ugh... I did a quick google search and discovered that StazOn worked wonders. I rummaged through my drawer and found this brand new ink pad, never before used. I knew I bought it all those years ago for a reason...lol!
HER CARD #5
This card has three layers to it. On the card base, I stamped and colored in the leaf images. The second layer is the cut out of those same leaf images. And the third layer popped up on foam tape has the two flower images. To sparkle the card up, I used my (trusty) quickie glue pen and prisma glitter as well as embellished with itty bitty sparkles. I stamped the sentiment on a slim piece of vellum and used silver embossing powder to tie in more silver color.
TIP: If the white cardstock behind a floral image seems to plain, apply a light shading of complimentary ink color with a blending brush. It is very subtle and the card looks even more "finished".
PACKAGING FOR HIS & HER CARD SETS
For the requirement of using something recycled, I used an old box that my husband found for me. The packaging was made up of a black sleeve and white bottom part that slid inside. I thought this was perfect for one card set however I needed another similar sized box to fit the second card set. Then I thought about it and said to myself "wait, this is perfect, I'll just make another white bottom piece to fit into the black sleeve and then create a cover for the white bottom box. And so on I went, I used white cardstock to create a box to fit into the black sleeve. And I used a piece of acetate to create a cover for the white bottom box. Presto-change-o...I had two different boxes to hold each set of cards!
I used the same inks and stencils to decorate the outside of each box. I used some of the leftovers pieces of triangles and flowers/leafs to add onto the covers. And I ink blended a strip of white cardstock to slip around each box so that they would stay closed. Carrying on the birthday theme, I stamped, alternately, the same sentiment on white cardstock and then adhered it, respectively, onto silver and gold foil paper to finish off the look.
TIP: I generally save any extra pieces that I created or used during my crafting projects just in case I want to use them later. This time I was very happy that I did because I used them to decorate the outside of these boxes. THANK YOU for sticking around and reading this entire post. (If you didn't read and just looked at the all pictures, that's definitely OK too!) This was a super fun challenge and with fingers crossed, hope that I can advance to the Level 2 Altenew courses.
Please leave a comment by clicking on the post title. A comment box will open up at the bottom of the post. Thanks and have a great day! 💖
