Altenew Educator Certification Program - Easy Die Cutting Techniques

The last two weeks have been utterly crazy around my house.  Contractors are still coming in and out several times a week to do some of the upgrades we've been waiting on or for paint touch-ups and other things that were not finished in the house.  In between that, I drove over 400 miles last week just getting to doctor appointments as I get re-established with my doctors that I had before I moved away from this area 8.5 years ago.  Everybody wants their own labs, x-rays, etc. and it's a lot of running around since the doctors and their facilities for these tests are a minimum of 60 miles away and two of them are even farther at 75 and 80 miles away.  I try to book things back to back but it still takes a ton of time since everything is so far apart from each other, and I always have to allow drive time as well.  I am not scheduling anything for the next couple of weeks.

Anyhow, I wanted to continue on with my class work for the Altenew Educator Certification Program and this post is for "Easy Die Cutting Techniques" over at Altenew Academy.

We are getting a painting for our new home by an artist whose work I greatly admire and whose work I follow on Instagram. Her name is Karen Hall Nitz and she paints geodes. These are not just flat paintings, but are very three dimensional.  She lives in the Dallas area and I have been wanting one for quite a while now.  I am finally getting one.  I told her the colors and will leave the rest up to her.  In addition to that, I told her that I would make her a selection of cards as a little bonus.  She asked for "Thank You" cards.  I know I can always use lots of those.


In case you don't know what a geode is, you can look on Wikipedia to get a definition or explanation of how they are formed and then search for geode images on Google or Pinterest.

I happen to have an uncle in New Mexico who is a geologist and I have long had a fascination for geodes.  He gave my mom one at least 30 (Probably closer to 40) years ago.  On the surface, the rock just looks just plain and flat and pretty round, but when he broke it open, it has amethyst crystals inside, much like the one pictured here.

You can also search Pinterest for

Geodes and see the many varieties of crystals that form inside of the geodes like the one on the right. It's always fascinating to me to see the wide variety of colors and textures inside.

So when I first saw Karen's work, I became an instant fan! I've been following her for over a year now  and while I would love to have a smaller painting in the style of "Rose Quartz" that you can see in her gallery, I wanted something that goes with the house and will fill some space on a currently very empty wall.  We have very tall ceilings in our living room and it echoes pretty bad right now.  We are hoping the canvas will absorb some of the noise.  We really don't want to put blinds or curtains over the windows because we love all the light.

Geode Painting by © Karen Hall Nitz

I know this style of artwork wouldn't appeal to everyone, and honestly, it is difficult to capture in a photo, but it was love at first sight for me.  Let me also say, this is not our painting.  But I do love the sea blue colors with the silver and gold accents.  It's very similar to the colors we asked for but we said "heavy on the gold".  Our fixtures throughout the house are Brushed Nickel so we decided it needed to have at least some silver in there to tie it all together.  You have no idea how hard it was for me not to put gold or brass fixtures in this house given my love for gold.

If you've been following along on my blog, then you know that my grandson, Charlie, and I have been playing a whole bunch with Yupo Paper in Medium and Heavyweight Varieties along with glossy cardstock so I have a whole slew of backgrounds right now.  I have also been experimenting a lot with using my Minc to get "gold veins" onto the backgrounds as well.  I still haven't figured out exactly what makes it work, but because the backgrounds look like granite or some other type of stone, I think the style of them matches Karen's design aesthetic very well and so I chose to use the alcohol inked backgrounds to make all of Karen's cards. 

As I sat down this morning to figure out what I was going to do for my Easy Die Cutting Techniques project, I decided to do Die Cut Inlay so I used a particularly lovely background that Charlie had created to make a Thank You card for my personal stash.  It didn't turn out at all how he wanted it, so he gave it to me to use because, as you know, Pink is one of my favorite colors.  He likes the grunge effect and he also likes Red - all reds and variations of red including orange, pink and coral.  I knew it would be really pretty foiled and I was right.

As I mentioned in a few previous posts, there are lots of variables using the Yupo paper, but the biggest thing is that it's hard to die cut the #144 Yupo with an intricate die cut.  So I decided to do the next best thing.  I used a scrap from another background to die cut my word and a piece of gold foiled cardstock to cut the shadow or mat for the word.

Then I adhered the sentiment strip (both the white and gold layers) to the background panel, placed the shadow die onto that and ran it through my die cut machine, with a piece of printer paper over the top so it wouldn't leave marks in the foiling.  This did exactly what I thought it would which is that it cut through the top two layers leaving the heavyweight Yupo background panel completely intact while providing the recess for my inlay technique.  When you do this, be sure to save all the little white pieces that fall out of the die cut so you can put them in place once your die cut word is adhered to the card background.

I added a couple of views here for you so that you can see the gorgeous shine left by the Minc machine.  This is actually one of the classes I had taken early on at Altenew when I first started Cardmaking and it was taught by one of my favorite designers, Yana Smakula.  Yana has a way with Gold and she is probably the one person who most influenced my style.

This particular background used Flamingo Alcohol Ink with Gold Mixative with Alcohol Ink Blending Solution but there is just no way to predict how the foiling will come out of the Minc Machine and in fact, I don't have another background like it in the many that I've made now.   Simon Says Stamp has the entire collection of Alcohol Inks available as a group HERE or in individual colors at THIS link.

I hope you enjoyed reading my thought process of how all of these cards came to be.  I like for my blog posts to be more conversational rather than strictly technical in nature and I hope you enjoy that aspect as well.  Thank you so much for stopping by today to check out my project and post.  I really appreciate all of you who take time to comment or just visit.  I listed the supplies I've used below for your convenience (Affiliate Links may be used).

Cuttlebug Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS	Heidi Swap Minc Machine Shop at: SSS	Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS	Ranger Multi Medium Matte Shop at: SSS
Ranger Non-Stick Craft Sheet Shop at: SSS	Thermoweb Decofoil Sheets - Gold Value Pack Shop at: SSS | GKD	Tim Holtz Tonic Paper Trimmer Shop at: SSS	Tim Holtz/Ranger Alcohol Ink Blending Solution Shop at: SSS
Tim Holtz/Ranger Alcohol Inks Shop at: SSS	Tonic 6 Inch Personal Trimmer Shop at: SSS	WPLUS9 Gift Card Layers Designer Dies Shop at: SSS	Yupo Heavyweight Paper 144 lb. Shop at: SSS
Yupo Paper 74 lb. Shop at: SSS

Altenew ECP - Let It Shine!

Today's post is for the Altenew Educator Certification Program Class - "Let it Shine".  If you know me via my blog or in real life, you know that I love all things twinkling, shiny, sparkly and shimmery so it's easy to figure out that I was looking forward to this class. But things didn't exactly go according to my plan so I want to share that part with you as well.

Last weekend we were celebrating my husband's and one of my grandson's birthdays.  School starts here on Monday so it was about the last chance I had to have Charlie (age 17) for the weekend.  It hard to believe that he will be starting his Senior year of High School.  Charlie likes art and in preparation for this occasion, I got some Yupo Paper so that we could play with my alcohol inks.  There is a huge variety of colors and also metallic mixatives to go with them at Simon Says Stamp and don't forget the Alcohol Ink Blending Solution.  I also have some of the little felt pads that can be used on the Ranger Mini Ink Blending Tools.  You'll need Yupo Paper or Glossy cardstock sometimes works depending on the technique you want to use.

I always have rubber gloves on hand to use for occasions like this.  I get mine from Sally Beauty Supply, but I know you can get them anywhere including Amazon.  I also had two craft mats and two cookie sheets covered with Heavy Duty Reynolds Wrap because, lets face it, Alcohol inks definitely stain.  This gave us a place to set our work aside to dry and then leave it or go back to it after it was dried.  Some of the backgrounds we made I wish I had left well enough alone but there will always be more of them and no two will ever look the same. 

I've only played with these inks one other time, but I had told Charlie about them and I figured I could probably use a lot of them for backgrounds on my cards.  We decided to start with my original pad of Yupo Paper, but I had ordered a pad of the new heavier weight paper as well.  I cut the sheets into 4 pieces and work on individual backgrounds one at a time.

To me, Alcohol Inks are even less predictable than watercolor but you never get the same thing twice which is part of the fun.  Charlie and I had a lot of fun experimenting and we also did some fun stuff with all my Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Inks. In the end, Charlie asked me to make him a galaxy sky to put in a frame and hang in his room.  I did just happen to have a frame on hand that he liked.

When we finished playing in the alcohol inks, I had about 20 backgrounds that I could use for cards but I wanted to try a technique that I saw Jessica Frost Ballas do on some alcohol inked backgrounds which was to foil them.  Let me just say, there is some practice needed to obtain the look you want and I have had some practice but I still don't know exactly what makes some better than others except that you should put the heat too high on your Minc or you get nothing but foil.  I was going more for the gold veined look.

This is one of the backgrounds that didn't get much transfer from the foil.  I have others that have more foil, but this is the one I chose to work with today.  There was very little transfer of foil onto this background and I tried a couple of different heat settings.  So there's just a little hint of bling on there and it's more like a nice little surprise than actual full on bling.

I also chose to use the new Altenew Build-A-Flower:  Cattleya and to use Gold Heat Embossing for the outline.  Because of the size of this image, I didn't get my heat embossing as solidly as I would have liked, but it's okay.   The part you didn't know was going to be here is the original versus the 2nd attempt.  When I originally made this card and got it all finished, I didn't feel there was enough contrast to go with the background panel. So I took it apart (which means I tore the sentiment, and the floral image trying to get them off) and tried some different colors.   This first version uses the Rose Petal Collection of Inks.  It's okay, but it just kind of blends into the background and makes it not that great.

For my second version, I decided to go more for the purple tones and so used Shades of Purple Ink Collection, but I still didn't like that.  I didn't feel the purples were the right tone to go with the background and I wanted something simple, but still eye catching. So instead of stamping a new floral, I stamped on top of the Shades of Purple Inks.  What was Soft Lilac, got stamped over with Pinkalicious.  What I had stamped previously in Deep Iris got stamped on top with Midnight Violet.  This gave me the kind of Berry tones I was going for and also upped the contrast significantly.  I want the floral to be the star of the show, but a narrow strip of gold glitter paper and a gold shadow behind the sentiment make it eye catching and definitely a better look than what I initially got.

I made sure I had a straight edge to adhere the glitter paper to and then die cut a Stitched Rectangle panel with it attached to get just that little strip of glitter.  It was super easy that way since I like to use dies for my card fronts.

I'm really glad I changed it up instead of just submitting something I wasn't that happy with.  I also added some fun foam to the back of the die cut bloom this time instead of using foam squares cut in half.  For the sentiment, I did use a bit of foam tape.  I considered some sequins or gems, but I think with the busy-ness of the background, it would be too much.  I plan to include more cards made with other foiled backgrounds so you can look forward to those! 

You can barely see any foiling on the background and in fact, if you don't know where it is, I doubt you would see it.  I still have lots of backgrounds to work with that you'll be seeing more of in future projects as I continue to work through my Altenew Educator Certification Program.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I've linked the supplies I've used below for your convenience (Affiliate Links may be used).

Altenew Antique Gold Crisp Embossing Powder Shop at: ALT	Altenew Build-A-Flower: Cattleya Shop at: ALT	Altenew Rose Petal Mini Cube Collection Shop at: ALT	Altenew Shades of Purple Ink Cubes Shop at: SSS | ALT
Decofoil Transfer Sheets Bulk Pack Shop at: SSS	SSS Gold Glitter Paper Shop at: SSS	Teflon Bone Folder Shop at: SSS	Tim Holtz Tonic Paper Trimmer Shop at: SSS
Versamark Ink Shop at: SSS	Wagner Heat Tool Shop at: SSS	WPLUS9 Gift Card Layers Designer Dies Shop at: SSS

Bountiful Thanks

My card today is for The Paper Players #368 - a Tic Tac Toe Challenge and The Fusion Card Challenge, Autumn Leaves. This card came out nothing like what I had intended when I started it.  I've been experimenting with Alcohol Inks and Alcohol Blending Solution on Yupo Paper (I got mine from Amazon) a bit this weekend and the particular one I used here didn't come out how I wanted it to.  It turned kind of reddish orange with my combination of inks (Gold Mixative with Red Pepper) which definitely felt more Fall than Christmas or holiday.  So I rolled with it and die cut the paper with Romantic Leaves from Spellbinders.

Before I move on, I want to talk about what I've learned with the Yupo Paper and the Alcohol Inks.  Initially, when I tried Alcohol inks, I didn't have any Yupo Paper so I used some of my SU! Glossy White Cardstock. I was pretty satisfied with those results but everyone talks about how you're supposed to use it with Yupo Paper.  Honestly, I didn't care too much for the Yupo Paper.  It's somewhat expensive, it's thin like vellum, and I didn't think it moved or worked very well with the alcohol inks. I purchased a single 11 x 14 pad with 12 sheets that I can cut down into 6 panels, but I would not use it again for this technique. I thought maybe I was using the wrong side, but there doesn't seem to be a right or wrong side and I tried both sides.  Also, I think it takes a lot of Alcohol Blending Solution to achieve good results and that is pretty pricey as well. So while I like having this tool in my tool belt, it isn't one I will use very often and when I do use it, I plan to stick with Glossy Cardstock. The best results I got by far were by smooshing the paper into the ink which I did on aluminum foil rather than dropping the ink directly onto the paper and adding blending solution to it.  I have several other backgrounds (including the ones I made with Glossy Cardstock last week) to use in a variety of colors that you'll see on upcoming projects and I used one here.

For this card, I wanted something that would work with the color of my leaves and I happened to have some paper out that would work perfectly.  I found this great 8.5 x 11 paper pad by Momenta at Hobby Lobby.  All of the prints in this pad are watercolor look and many of them have gold or silver paint splatters on them.  Since I have the touches of gold in the leaves, I chose this soft yellow/coral print for my background.  I die cut it with MFT Blueprints 15 Stitched Rectangle Die and gave it some healthy mists Iridescent Gold Shimmer Mist.  I arranged the leaves on that panel then adhered them with Ranger Multi Medium Matte.  To keep everything simple, flat and easily mailable, I cut a strip of vellum with the largest MFT Horizontal Stitched Strips and then stamped the sentiment from the Color Pop Autumn Stamp Set using Versamark and heat setting it with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I used my powder tool first so that my embossing would stay clean.

To adhere the vellum strip, I put a skinny little line of sticky dot adhesive (Kokuyo) on the stitch line of the background panel and then gently pressed the vellum onto that.  The adhesive is light blue and if you put it directly onto the vellum, it shows through.

I die cut one of the Impression Obsession Butterflies that I use all the time from Gold Foiled Cardstock and put skinny strips of Scotch 3M Foam Tape under the body and a glue dot under the back end to make it seem as if the butterfly was about to be in flight.  I added a few Nuvo Drops in Copper Penny for a bit of contrast and let them dry overnight. 

I hope you enjoyed my card and will take time to stop by The Paper Players Challenge Blog and the Fusion Card Challenge Blog. 

Make It Monday #301 with Papertrey Ink

My card for today features a few techniques, one from Lizzie Jones where she shows "Matting With Glitter" in her video here. You'll have to scroll down to the next picture to see the glitter detail. For my card, I took a slightly different approach for my mat because I have a tiny little bit of experience with this and I've learned what works for me.  I've also learned that some glitters are just messier than others.

I started out this morning with some aluminum foil, latex gloves, a few alcohol inks, and some Alcohol Ink Blending Solution. A week or so ago, Jennifer McGuire had done a video showing some techniques to use alcohol inks but I had seen one more than a year ago from Loll Thompson. Yupo Paper is the thing that is recommended for using with alcohol inks for best results but I don't have any. I did, however, have some Stampin' Up! Glossy White Cardstock in my supplies from long ago so I decided to try that out before I went all in and got Yupo paper since it's kind of expensive. A warning though, as Jennifer said the other day, it is hard to quit playing with the supplies because each time is different and so beautiful.  

I cut two 8.5 x 11 inch sheets of glossy card stock in the 4.25 x 5.5 inch panels. That would give me 8 panels if I didn't mess any up, and I had other things I needed to do, I had to give myself a limit. I tried Jennifer's technique first but it didn't work very well on my glossy cardstock so I switched to Loll's method for the second and subsequent card panels.  It was a lot of fun and not too messy the way I did it thanks to Loll's advice. You can see her video tutorial here. I did use a Metallic Mixative in gold which I'm sure comes as no surprise to anyone.  I used a large piece of aluminum foil for each color combination (2) and a pair of latex gloves (I buy a box at the beauty supply store), I had regular rubbing alcohol but I found that didn't work very well on my paper so after the first try, I didn't use it any more. I do plan to try it on some Yupo when I get it. Alcohol inks stain badly so that's the reason for the foil.  I'm very curious to know if regular ink refills will work with this technique, but I'll have to try it another day. 

While my background panels dried completely, I got to work on the Glitter mat part of my card.  For my glitter mat, I covered a scrap piece of white card stock completely with Stick-It Adhesive and then die cut the smaller of the Mat Stack Layerz I from that. Next I die cut the Wonderful Words: Joy from gold foil cardstock along with a Star of Wonder from Memory Box. I placed my die cut word onto the sticky label and pressed it down firmly with my bone folder.  Then I covered the rest of the label with some Nuvo Pure Sheen Diamond Glitter and burnished it in with my bone folder. That way, only the negative parts were still sticky and this gave me an inlaid look for the mat. I also cut the Largest Layerz I from Gold Foil so that my mat could have a mat (ha!).  Because the background has so much movement, I wanted to keep my card design very simple.  I cut the panel with a stitched rectangle die and adhered it to my top folding card base made from Stamper's Select White Cardstock. Then I placed the glittered, matted element on the front along with the Star of Wonder.  

I hope you like my card for this week's Make It Monday.  You can see lots more inspiration and many projects over at the Papertrey Blog.  Thanks you so much for spending a few minutes with me today.