Altenew Educator - In The Mood For Color

Today's post is for the Altenew Educator Certification Program Class "In The Mood For Color" and was about the kind of emotions associated with certain colors.  You can use this as a tool to aid in your card designs.

Blue – Calm, Tranquility; Red – Love, Passion, Energy; Green – Soothing, Growth, Natural; Yellow – Energy, Cheer, Optimism; Pink – Sensitive, Caring, Sweet; Orange – Health, Happiness, Courage; and let's not forget Rainbow – Happy, Cheer, Optimism, Courage, Energy, Growth, etc….  Each day of class featured a specific color with a bonus class at the end for Rainbow.

I ended up making several cards today with a wide variety of supplies in a variety of colors as well.  I was trying to decide what type of card I wanted to make for my project as as I was looking through my stamps I saw that just to the left of me were my Wreath Builder Templates from Gina K Designs.  I then decided that would be a great way to come up with a monochromatic color scheme for a card.

I don't remember where I first heard it or read it, but I did remember hearing someone talk about how you could still use the templates to make an oval shape rather than a circle shape so I went to Gina's YouTube Channel to see what I could find.  It seems like Jennifer McGuire did something similar to this as well although for the first 2 months after our move, I had very limited Internet access, which meant I didn't get to watch too many videos because it would use up all my data.  I did find one where she shows the technique at this link from about a month ago.  I told you . . . I am way behind in my videos!  You don't realize how much you use the Internet until you have to limit what you can look at based on how much data it uses.

For my first card using the wreath builder I chose Altenew Crisp Ink in Blues which was day one of our Class.  I used Galactic Stream for the darkest blue, then Teal Cave, Aqualicious, and Ocean Waves.  I also used Ocean Wave for the Tri-dots.  I didn't have any Nuvo Drops in the right colors so I used Turquoise Stickles for the little Tri-dots and with the Ocean Waves underneath it really helps to add a little depth to the tone of the blue.  The longest image that I started with came from Altenew's Henna Elements Stamp Set.  The little 5 petaled flourish and the tri-dots also came from that set.  The sprig came from the Gina K Wreath Builder Set and the little star shaped flower came from the WPLUS9 Be Merry Florals. I love the way the images all came together at the bottom and made that kind of swirl for the start of my wreath. Once you start looking at what you have it is so easy to see other things you already have that you can use with the wreath builder.  I found so many different things to try and I have a stack of stamp sets still sitting on my desk to try with the Wreath Builder Templates.


Blue is a calming color and in large part that is why I chose a blue based grey for the paint color in my new home.  I have lots of blues throughout and plan to add some soft and mid toned teal in the future in things like pillows or throws, etc.

For my second card, I wanted to play with greens which is also a soothing or calming color.  Our painting is titled "Hawaiian Memories" in honor of a trip that Fayne and I took there way back in 1992. I actually won that trip through my job at the time.  It's got lots of sea blues with teal as well as gold and silver.  You know how I love my gold, but since the fixtures in my house are all Brushed Nickel, I thought we'd better tie that in as well.  You have no idea how hard it was for me not to put gold fixtures in the house but I feel like Brushed Nickel is more timeless.  Let me just say, this painting is very heavy and so large that it requires two of us to move it as well as barely fitting above our mantle.   We had planned to put it on another wall, but changed our minds when we tried it on the wall. 

Anyhow, I liked the first card so much that I decided to try a green version.  I used primarily Altenew Crisp Inks in Frayed Leaf, Forest Glades and Fresh Asparagus from Gina K Designs. Fresh Asparagus is my favorite fall and winter green. When I got it all put together, I liked it a lot and decided to add a holly leaf in each corner with Altenew Evergreen.  The tri-dots were stamped in Ruby Red and I put Christmas Red Stickles over the top of them.  I thought this might be a nice one to send after a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal with family or friends. 

The Sentiment I used for these cards is from the Papertrey 2016 Anniversary set that was only available for that year called Painted Petals.  ON the first card I used some Stampendous Sapphire Blue Embossing Powder and my usual Antique Gold on the 2nd card. I used a panel of Navy Blue Cardstock with a narrow strip of Silver Glitter Paper for the front of the card.  For the second card, I matted it in Antique Gold Vellum.

Then, while I had everything out, I decided to try a more fall or thanksgiving type of card with this technique using some fall themed stamps.  I usually make a few cards for one of my Sisters-In-Law that she sends to all of their Harvest Helpers when Harvest is finished each year.  So while this is only a prototype and there are things I would change (color wise), I like the basic design so I thought I'd still share it with you. 

I used a wheat stalk for the longest/tallest element of this wreath, the little sprig from the Original Wreath Builder Set, the acorns from a Papertrey Set, the leaf and the little flower are from the WPLUS9's Be Merry Florals and Autumn Leaves.  I put little gooseberry type things on the little branch-y sprig because that was all I could think of at the time.  I would definitely change up some of the colors to be deeper and brighter, but as I said, this was just for a prototype to get a feel for whether or not it would work.  Happily, it did.

Whenever I am doing a lot of stamping using multiple colors it seems that's always when I find out I don't have a reinker for some color or other.  It's practically a full time job just keeping track of those things.  I have three brands of ink that I use most of the time which is Gina K Designs, Altenew, and Papertrey Ink. I have quick access to the latter two right on my desk, so those were the colors I used for the Thanksgiving card.  I used Nuvo Drops in Bottle Green for the green berries on this card.  When I get to make more of these, I will actually look up which type of berries are out in the fall and stamp accordingly.  The town near where my Sister in Law lives is Hiawatha, Kansas and is known as the City of Beautiful Maples.  The have the most maples and they come in gorgeous reds and oranges so I would want to use more vibrant colors next time. 

I'm going to wrap up this post so I can move on to my next class which is called "With a Twist".  I hope you enjoyed my projects for this class and will think about trying one of your own.  It was a lot of fun to see how easily these wreaths came together.  Try finding small stamps in your collection to make wreaths with and you'll be surprised at how many you have or you can always buy the Wreather Builder Templates and so far there are three different Wreath Builder Stamps set made for this purpose.  You can check it all out at Gina K Designs here (Affiliate Link).  The templates are now offered separately.  Altenew Products are linked here (Affiliate Link).  Have a great rest of the day everyone!