ArtUnwound

Welcome back! I had to take a brief hiatus last week due to an inordinate amount of health care appointments, but I am back this week with my latest creations from the Altenew Academy class, All about Layering 4 taught by the wonderful Lydia Evans.

Throughout the lessons, Lydia gave some excellent tips, my favourite of which was using some kind of tape (washi, painters tape or anything that won’t rip the cardstock when removed) across the parts of your project that you want to stay in place. You can then flip the whole thing over and apply your glue or foam tape of whatever adhesive you are using without losing the integrity of the design plan. It’s brilliant.

My first card, using the Golden Days stamp and die set was done using neutral colours (Altenew Fresh Inks in Sand Dunes, Rocky Shore, Mocha and Espresso for the flowers and Frayed Leaf, Forest Glade and Evergreen for the leaves). I stamped the outline of the flowers with Espresso rather than black and the outline of the leaves in Evergreen.

I also added a vellum leaf spray from the Fresh Flowers die set. I placed the bottom design and used the offcuts that were overhanging the card to create the design in the top right corner. I mounted the designs on a piece of chocolate brown cardstock that I embossed with the Hexagon Blocks embossing folder. I then used some Brushed Gold cardstock as a mat and mounted it all on a 5.5″ square card base. The sentiment was from the Scripty Sentiments die set and was cut from white cardstock twice and topped with brushed gold. The shadow layer is white cardstock with white vellum over it. The final touch was some brushed gold half pearls in various sized. All in all, I find this a “peaceful” card.

For my next project, I really wanted to go with some greens as it’s my favourite colour but I rarely use it as the main focus of a card.

I used Ethereal Roses stamp and die set with Distress Oxides for the flowers in Spun Sugar, Kitsch Flamingo, Picked Raspberry and Candied Apple. The darkest portion is Altenew Fresh Dye Ink in Rhodolite. The leaves were done with Frayed Leaf, Forest Glade and Evergreen. I again used Lydia’s method to keep the pieces of my design together while I put the foam tape on the back.

The card panel is a pale green with some patterned paper on the left side that has a metallic stripe in it. I also used some patterned vellum over the green cardstock as it had the same “feel” as the Ethereal roses. The sentiment (also from the Scripty Sentiments set) was cut twice from white cardstock and mounted on the shadow layer of light green. The card base is a 5 x 6.5″ base. It was interesting using two different patterns on this card, as that isn’t something I would usually do.

That’s it for this week. I think I have 2 more classes in Level 1 to complete before I get my final assignment. All things being equal, and my medical team not interfering, I will be back next week with either Seasonal Scene Building or Irresistible Inking Techniques. Have a wonderful week and I hope you get time to do the things you love.