Altenew December 2018 Inspiration Challenge - Year in Review

Hello there!  I am here today with a post that will be just getting in under the wire for the Altenew December 2018 Inspiration Challenge.  I think I have until Midnight Eastern time to get this uploaded to their gallery.  As you might know, I've been working to get my Altenew Educator Certification Programs completed and so I wanted to end the year with a card made from Altenew products using several of the techniques that I've focused on during the classes.

When I started working on this card today, I selected a completely different stamp set that I was planning to use - Floral Flurries stamps and dies with some leaves from Beautiful Heart and Frosted Garden thrown in there too.  I had everything stamped and die cut ready for my card, so I wanted to add some texture and color to my background panel.  I also wanted to create a larger 5 x 7 card with lots of gentle spring colors as I've been working on Christmas Cards pretty much non-stop except for my Altenew class projects this past month.

One of the things I most like about Altenew is that you can mix elements from other sets to get a truly unique look.  It was with this thought in mind that I had stamped my original elements.  I also wanted to add some interest to the background so I used a larger embossing folder that I had in my supplies but had never used.  I tried to find the name of this one, but I couldn't find it and I'm thinking it might have come as a freebie with my Gemini Die Cutting Machine.  Using a piece of 5 x 7 Neenah Solar White cardstock, I ran it through my Cuttlebug to emboss the paper.  It took a little figuring out because this embossing folder is a bit thicker than most so you just have to figure out what works for your machine.  Once I embossed it, I wanted to add some soft colors to the background along with some gold watercolor splatter.  To do this, I grabbed a piece of scratch paper and some soft stenciling brushes and went around the outside edges with Frosty Pink and then some Harvest Gold (PTI) on the center and kind of blended it out.  The supplies I used today are all nearly all from Altenew except for that little touch of Harvest Gold Ink, the adhesives and the Finetec Gold Watercolor on the background. I didn't feel like I had a good choice in my Altenew inks, as I only have one set of the Yellow color family cubes and none of them worked very well with the Frosty Pink. 

I really loved how this turned out, so I went ahead and grabbed my Finetec Mica Gold Watercolors and spritzed the Inca Gold with a little water.  I used a #2 script brush to create the spatter which has longer fibers than other brushes and makes a very fine splatter.  I'm not very patient, so I used my heat tool to assist in drying the splatter from the back side.

Thinking I was finished with this background and ready to assemble my card, I grabbed all the elements and started arranging them on my background panel.  I realized immediately, that my stamped elements were all wrong for this background.  I loved the way the background looked so much, that I grabbed a different stamp set and started my bouquet all over again.  This time I chose Perfectly Perfect and heat embossed the images with Altnew's Rose Gold Embossing Powder onto Canson Bristol Cardstock.  I used a wet on wet technique for the flowers with Frosty Pink and Coral Berry Re-inkers.  I have one of the little flower shaped porcelain dishes that I add a spritz of water to with a drop of color from the reinker to get a light wash of color.  I used a lot of water not being particularly careful to stay in the lines although it seems like I did okay.  For the leaves, I used Forest Glades Re-inker.

Once everything was completely dry, I die cut everything.  I always stamp and cut extras of the leaves as that's what I seem to need more of.  In addition to the elements from Perfectly Perfect, I stamped and Rose Gold Heat Embossed one of the elements from Wings of Hope that I could use as a sprig of something to use as a filler in my arrangement.

When I started laying out my arrangement, I chose a sentiment from the Sentiments & Quotes Stamp set that I love.  I used a combination of Ranger Multi Medium Matte, Scotch 3-D Foam Tape, Scrapbook adhesives 3-D Foam Squares, and Thin 3-D Foam Squares.  I mounted the background panel on Scotch 3-D Foam Tape but it probably would have been easier to use a piece of fun foam.  I just didn't want to stop what I was doing to go get a piece.

I love how this card turned out and I wish I had time to make cards like this every single day.  This is so very much my personal style and I love it.  I hope the Altenew Team enjoys it as well as it is one of my all time favorites!

Watercolor Surprises & Grounding Sentiments

Last month for the July 2016 Papertrey Ink Blog Hop, Nichole Heady gave us a beautiful inspiration piece of a photograph of home decor in some soft corals and misty blues.  In my initial attempt to capture the look of that wallpaper, I have what some would consider a failed attempt but what I call a "Watercolor Surprise".  I liked it so much in fact, that I saved it to return to another day, that being today.  For the particular piece I did today, I did some very random ink blending with a Mini Ink Blending Tool in Soft Stone Ink (like the rug in the photo) all over a 4.25 x 5.5 inch panel of watercolor paper, misted it with water, let it air dry and then added in some more random ink blending using Lovely Lady Ink.  I misted the panel again with a bit more water this time to really let the colors blend and merge how they wanted and set it aside for a while to air dry.

Next I stamped the large bloom and leaves from the Beautiful Day Stamp Set (a favorite that I use often) in Versamark onto watercolor paper and heat embossed them using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I colored those images using Ocean Tides and Lovely Lady inks.  I stamped a sentiment on Stamper's Select White using Altenew's Sentiments & Quotes (I love this particular quote from Abraham Lincoln) and heat embossed it using the same embossing powder. This is a very wide quote but I wanted it to be slightly narrower than my card front width of 4.25 inches. I eyeballed it at the time but measured it for you just now and the width of the sentiment strip is 3 7/8ths inches by .75 inches tall.  I also cut a label from gold foiled cardstock using Spellbinders Labels 42 and Labels 42 Decorative Elements to go behind the floral elements.

For the background panel, I went back to my original piece of ink blended watercolor paper and carefully drew in the lines for the "wallpaper" of the original inspiration image.  When you are using ink, you don't get a do-over.  I used a T-Ruler and a "Stardust" Pen from Sakura in Clear. I wanted to recreate the geometric pattern of that wallpaper which is visible but still subtle.  Once I had that done, I misted the panel with Tsukineko Sparkle Sheer Shimmer Spritz and let it dry. I noticed this shimmer spritz is becoming very popular lately with some of the more well known cardmakers in the industry but I have been using it all along and it is the reason I chose the name "Twinkling Paper Studio".  *Ü*

Once that panel was dry, I could go ahead and put my card together.  I started by trimming my background panel down to 4 1/8th x 5 3/8ths so that just a narrow border of the Stamper's Select White Card Base would be showing.

I really like using frames or labels to ground my other images and the sentiment strip also helps with that.  In fact, that is the theme of this week's Make It Monday over at Papertrey.  Normally I try to use a lot more Papertrey Ink products when I participate in their Make It Monday's but I met the required "at least one" Papertrey Ink Product for this card by using their inks and their cardstock. I decided to go ahead and use this card as a further example of grounding images on your card fronts. The frame and the sentiment strip both do that rather than making your images look as if they appeared from out of nowhere and are just floating by.

As always, I have linked the products I used in my post and you can click on the affiliate links on the right hand side bar to shop for supplies.  Feel free to leave any comments or questions for me here or in the contact me form.  I read every comment and appreciate each and every one. Thanks for stopping by today and I'll be back very soon with another project.