Hi there!

My card today is the last card project for Level 1 of the Altenew Educator Certification Program (AECP) and uses techniques I learned from the class called “Let it Shine”. After this, I’ll be given a “challenge” project before I move on to Level 2.

You’ve probably already figured out that I love to use gems and shimmer on my cards – I just love that added bit of sparkle! So you can imagine how excited I was to take this class! More ways to add some shine? Count me in!

For this card, I decided to stretch my heat embossing skills to make shiny silver cardstock.

I started by going direct-to-paper with my VersaMark ink pad around the edges of a white cardstock panel. Since I was going to be layering another panel over the top of it, I only needed to apply ink to the edges.

Once inked, I heat embossed the panel edges using silver embossing powder.

I repeated this same process for a think strip of cardstock I wanted to run across my card front.

Next, I die cut a panel from white cardstock using the Taylored Expressions Pierced Lattice die and layered that on top of the silver embossed panel. I secured the silver strip across the panel and used foam tape to mount both panels on a piece of gray cardstock and then onto my card front.

I ink blended several pieces of white cardstock with various shades of pink and green and then die cut the flowers and leaves using the Altenew Climber Flowers die set. I assembled the flowers and leaves, arranged them on the card front, and secured them in place with liquid glue.

I was going to skip the sentiment on this card but decided that it looked unbalanced without it, so I used the silver embossing powder to heat emboss a sentiment from the Altenew Sentiment Strips stamp set.

I popped the sentiment up using foam tape and tucked in a few extra leaves behind it.

I have to say, the pictures of this card don’t do it justice! The silver shine really takes this card to the next level. I didn’t even feel like I had to add any gems! 😊

I hope you like this card and that you’ll find a way to do something creative – and sparkly – today! All the best,