Hi Everyone!

A couple weeks ago I learned that I had been accepted into the Altenew Educator Certification Program (AECP)! I’m really excited about this program and the opportunity to learn more about the craft that I love and how to educate others on it. I can’t wait to learn new techniques and to improve my skills.

Today, I’m posting my first projects for the Program.

My first class was “All about Layering 1” and taught me tips and tricks for using layering stamps and for creating different looks just by making slight changes in how I stamped them.

For my first project I used the Altenew Build-a-Flower: Canterbury Bells Stamp & Die set. This set has several layering stamps for both the flowers and the leaves and I thought it would be a great set to test what I had learned in the class.

I really wanted a soft feel for this card, so I skipped the outline stamp and did a technique called “second generation stamping” or “stamping off” to lessen the intensity of my dye inks.

I followed the tips from the class to line up each layer of the stamp set and then used the coordinating dies to cut the image.  The picture below provides a close-up of the layers on each of the bells and the leaves.

For the background, I lightly blended blue ink over the Altenew Wavy Grid stencil. I blended the ink darker on one side and softer on the other in order to create a geometric pattern that faded away toward the edges of the paper.

I used a Nested Essentials Stitched Rectangles die from Maker’s Movement to create the stitched edge around the stenciled image.

I adhered the Canterbury Bells onto the stenciled background and used foam tape to pop it up from the card front and give the card a bit of dimension.

I created a tag for the sentiment using the Gift Tag die set from My Favorite Things and attached it with a piece of twine.

Of course, I added a few gems to give the card a bit of sparkle.

I just love how this card turned out! I definitely achieved the soft feel I was going for and I was able to apply several tips and techniques from the class while making it.

Stay tuned for my next post where I show another card I made for this class!

All the best,