AECP - Color Your Day

Altenew's Color Your Day class taught by Therese Calvird was right up my alley with how I create cards. This class is all about finding new and unusual color combinations for your projects. Therese talks about how to use a color wheel in that class as well. If you struggle with making color choices or stepping outside of a regularly used color combination this might be the right class for you.
 

Pro tips: Look for color inspiration everywhere. Color wheel, photos, fabric, other cards, color challenges and in my case Sarah Renae Clark's Color Cubes.

Therese also suggests a 70/20/10 ratio for using colors on your project. 

For this card I stamped the image from Altenew Gracious Peonies and then using the coordinating stencil & blending brushes I colored in the image using 2 purples and 2 greens that I choice using the Color Cube card I had selected. I was able to get plenty of color variation by changing how lightly I blended with my brush.

Once my image was colored I used the coordinating die to cut out the image as well as cut 2 additional out of white cardstock. By layering the 3 die cut pieces I get just a little pop up of the image without using a bunch of foam tape.

I played around with the image on the card front until I was happy with the position and using a Mini Misti stamp positioner I stamped the sentiment from the Gracious Peonies set with Versamark ink and heat embossed it with gold embossing powder. Once the sentiment had cooled off so I did not risk smudging it I used Bearly Arts glue to attach my floral image and then adhered the piece to a card base.  

Supplies Used
Stamps - Altenew Gracioius Peonies
Ink - Taylored Expressions, Lawn Fawn, Concord & 9th, Versamark
Paper - Taylored Expressions, Hammermill
Misc - gold embossing powder, Bearly Arts glue, Color Cubes

AECP - Beautiful Details

I have completed the Beautiful Details class at Altenew taught by Marika Rahtu. She teaches how to use markers, color pencils, and pens to add detail to your stamped images. Marika gives lots of tips and ideas for adding additional details to bring out your images.

 

I stamped the solid image from Altenew's Garden Hydrangea layering stamp set in the lighest color and then using the same ink I stamp the last of the layers . Once my ink was dry I then used a Pigma Micron 0.3 pen and went around each flower in the clusters to define each one. Lastly I used my Faber-Castell Polychromos  color pencils and added in the center details and some shading.

There was too much white space for my liking so I went in with the purple ink as well as some Dr PH Martin's Bombay ink in black and created splatters just around the flowers in the white areas. Heat embossed a sentiment from Altenew's Beautiful Quotes stamp set.

Supplies Used

Stamps - Altenew Garden Hydrangea, Altenew Beautiful Quotes
Ink - Taylored Expressions, Versamark, Dr PH Martin Bombay
Cardstock - Hammermill, Lawn Fawn, Neenah, Taylored Expressions

Misc - Faber-Castell Polychromos, Pigma Micron pen

AECP - Polychromatic

Merriam-Webster defines polychromatic as showing a variety or a change of colors. In Altenew's Polychromatic class, Nina-Marie teaches how to use color combinations and ranges of color to give you more confidence in color usage in card making.

Nina's monochromatic card technique with partial die cutting of the sentiment makes for a quick and easy set of cards. Since I don't do monochromatic or partial die cutting very often I decided to use both of these techniques to make a few cards.

I started out by selecting several pieces of colored cardstock and inks in 1-2 shades darker than the cardstock. Some times it is nice to just grab a few supplies and create a card or two to have on hand. I wanted something simple that could be masculine or feminine, so I chose a simple background stamp to use for these cards.

After stamping each piece of cardstock, I trimmed each piece to 3.75" x 4.5". Then I partially die cut each sentiment from the top of the colored cardstock panels and attached them to my card bases. The sentiments were die cut from Altenew Brushed Gold cardstock and pieced into the tops of each panel.

Supplies used:
Stamps - Altenew Faceted Stars, Altenew Gracious Peonies
Dies - Altenew Fancy Thanks, Altenew Script Words, Altenew Simply Hello
Inks - Altenew Fresh dye inks, Versamark
Paper - Altenew Brushed Gold cardstock, Taylored Expressions cardstock 
Misc - Imagine Crafts irRESISTible Pico Embellisher Gold, old epoxy embellishments,
embossing powder, Wagner Heat Tool, Spellbinders Platinum 6