Altenew Educator - Masking Unleashed

THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED TO ADD CONTENT!

Hello everyone!  I am here today with my last project for the Altenew Educator Certification Program Level II Classes.  Once this is submitted I will be assigned my class project for my "final" exam.

My project for today uses very simple masking to create the look of a flower with a lot of foliage behind it.  I used Versamark to stamp and heat emboss all of the outline images in this set and that can get super tricky as your mask will leave some sticky residue on your image, so you must use lots of powder between each stamping to make sure your image stays nice and clean.  I also did mine on Arches Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper because it is smoother for heat embossing and stamping.

Because I have RA, I have a difficult time cutting masks by hand, so I kept my card very clean and simple so I only had to cut one mask for the bloom.  I love the bloom and the leaves in this set, so I still stamped the additional layers but after that was done I took a plain water brush and blended all the color around.  The leaves first and then the bloom.  It just makes it so the lines are softened out a bit and the color blends a bit more.  For my leaves, I used Sweet Leaf and Just Green Inks and the bloom was done in Rose Quartz and Pinkalicious which are all from Altenew.  I wanted something very soft for the bloom which is why I chose to blend everything out with a water brush.  It gives it the look of watercolor without the work.  I'm not very good with watercolor and I haven't had much time to practice this year, but I have a couple of classes that I plan to go back and revisit with the colder temperatures setting in.

I did not get a very good picture of my card this time before the sun moved (with the shorter daylight hours) into my window, so I apologize for the image quality this time around.  For a touch of sparkle, I added some Ballerina Pink sequins with some gems in the center and also some Tonic Nuvo Shimmer Pen to the bloom and leaves.

Thank you so much for stopping by today and checking out my project.  I hope you'll come back soon.  Wishing all of my American friends a very Happy Thanksgiving weekend.  I'm both dreading and excited to see what the Black Friday or Cyber Monday Sales bring to us this year.

I have sent about 80 Christmas Cards today and still have a few more to make to finish up for the season plus I have the Keeping Christmas Blog Hop and the Papertrey Ink Blog hop on the 25th so I'll be back soon with more projects for you to see.

*Edited 11/22/2018:  So after sitting on my desk for a few days, I decided I really needed more color and contrast in my focal image.  Using my stamping as a guideline, I went back in with my Pink Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker and added some additional color and details to my water-brushed image.  I like this much better.  I would encourage you to try adding some color if you aren't satisfied with the way an image turns out.  In my case, the greens seemed very vibrant while the bloom was too soft and pastel to compete with the leaves.  I'm much happier with the way the bloom looks now.