Background Magic

In the Background Magic class, Laurel Beard taught a number of different techniques to create backgrounds for cards using large background stamps. From inking to watercolor to heat embossing. This class has me wanting to pull out my large background stamps and spend a day or two just creating backgrounds with them using the techniques from the class. 

The techniques in this class can be used for so many different themes by just changing up the colors or sentiments.

Cards 1 & 2 - Inking Techniques

For these panels we inked directly on to the Altenew Watercolor Dots stamps set using different color inks and then stamped the image on a cardstock panel. You can get a different look to the panels by spritzing on some water before stamping the image down. The water helps the inks create a watercolor effect.

For the first 2 cards I just inked directly onto the stamp with different Altenew Fresh Dye ink cubes and then stamped the image on a piece of cardstock. The one on the left I used just 2 color families to create and the one on the right I followed Laurel's color choices. While both panels are pretty the one on the right has much more interest and texture due to the colors of ink used being in different color families.

For both cards I used sentiments from Altenew One-Go: Solid Sentiment Strips press plate. I am loving this press plate and how the sentiments look. The panels were trimmed down and layered on to cardstock layers before being adhered to the card fronts.

Card 3 - Inking Techniques Watercolor

For this card we used the same technique of stamping various colors of Altenew Fresh Dye ink cubes on to the stamp and then lightly spritzed the stamp with water before stamping the image on to a piece of watercolor paper. I then die cut the Altenew Circle Greetings: Hugs die three times and used liquid glue to layer them for added dimension to the sentiment.

 
Card 4 - Inking Techniques Heat Embossing

To create this card panel, the same Altenew Watercolor Dots stamp set was stamped on to a black piece of cardstock with white pigment ink. Pigment ink take a while to dry so you can use a heat tool to dry the ink faster. Once the dots were dry, we then took embossing ink and embossed the additional small images randomly on top of the dots using Altenew Antique Gold embossing powder. Then layered the card panel on a piece of Altenew Gold Metallic cardstock before adhering it on to a card front.

TIP: You must make sure that your pigment ink is completely dry before doing additional stamping on top of the pigment ink otherwise the powder will stick to the pigment ink too.
 
Card 5 - Partial Heat Embossing

This card was create using Altenew Rustic Linen background stamp. You could just ink up the whole stamp with embossing ink and it would be perfectly lovely. However, for this card we randomly tapped the embossing ink pad on to the stamp leaving only part of the stamp inked before stamping on to the cardstock panel. We then heat embossed the image with Altenew Antique Gold embossing powder. 

This technique gives you a different look every time since the ink is randomly applied each time.

Cards 6 & 7 - Watercolor Techniques

One of Laurel's design suggestions was to stamp your image and heat emboss it. Then turning your card base 90 degrees and repeating the stamping & embossing a second time to give you more options with your backgrounds.

The card on the left used Laurel's suggestion of double stamping the design by turning your panel 90 degrees. You can see what a difference you can get. Both of these cards were created using the same background stamp. I used a second piece of watercolor paper to "clean" the extra inks off of my glass mat giving me 2 more panels to use at a later time.

Left card - After stamping and embossing a watercolor panel with white embossing powder, I tapped the Altenew Fresh Dye ink cubes on to my glass mat, spritzed them with water and dipped the card panel into the color. I dipped it several times always drying with my heat tool between each layer of ink. Once the ink was dry, I stamped a sentiment from Altenew's Classic Greetings set on to a piece of vellum using Versamark ink and then heat embossed it with black embossing powder. After allowing the embossing powder to cool I used some Scarpbook.com Clear Double-sided Adhesive on the back of the vellum to adhere it to the card panel. The panel was then layered on to a black cardstock panel and then adhered to a card base.

Right card - I again stamped a piece of watercolor paper with Altenew Pattern Play - Diamonds stamp set and heat embossed it in white. I then spritzed the panel with water and sprinkled on some Lindy's Magical powders. Spritzing with more water to break up the powder and get the colors to move on the paper. Using my heat tool, I dried the panel and dipped it a few more times to get more texture to the image.  For the sentiment panel I used 2 sentiments from Altenew Cascading Flowers and a leaf image from Altenew Garden Bouquet stamping them in embossing ink and heat embossing with white embossing powder.

SUPPLIES USED
Press Plate - One-Go: Solid Sentiment Strips

Stamps - Altenew Watercolor Dots, Altenew Rustic Linen, Altenew Pattern Play - Diamonds, Altenew Classic Greetings, Altenew Garden Bouquet, Altenew Cascading Flowers

Dies - Altenew Circled Greetings: Hugs Die

Inks - Altenew Fresh Dye ink cubes, Versamark, Hero Arts white pigment ink

Paper - Altenew cardstock, Hammermill cardstock, Ranger Distress watercolor

Misc - Altenew Antique Gold embossing powder, Brutus Monroe Alabaster & Raven embossing powder, Lindy's Magical powder (Danny Zuko's Denim, Lucky Shamrock Green, Every Picture Teals a Story)

Demystifying Mixed Media

Here I am once again with another class towards the Altnew Educators Certification Program. For this class I chose Demystifying Mixed Media taught by Tania Ahmed. I have a love-hate relationship with mixed media. I love the look and all the texture you can get but I hate the usually messiness of the techniques to get the look and texture. 

These are the six cards I made during the lessons for this class. I have to be honest and say I still have a love-hate relationship with mixed media but I am happy with the results I got with each of these cards.

Card 1 - Embossing Paste Textured Background

For this lesson we used stencils, embossing paste, and watercolor paints to create the background for this card. I watercolored the floral image from Altenew In the Woodland set and then die cut it. Once the background was dry, I stamped the sentiment from the same set in the lower corner. Tania used a cool looking spider tulle ribbon to embellish her card but since I didn't have that I used some of Altenew's metallic thread behind my image.

Cards 2 & 3 - Gesso Ghost Background

For this lesson the cardstock panel was coated with gesso. When it was dry Tania used watercolor paints for hers but since I have so many of the Lindy's Magical powders I decided to use those for my background. Once the background was dry I placed the Altenew Leaf Drop stencil on the background and used a baby wipe to gently wipe over the open areas to remove and lighten the design.

When I was happy with the background I used a circle die to cut out a circle in the backgroun panel. That circle was temporarily placed on a card base and then stamped with Altenew Sweet Pea stamp. We then colored in the stamped image with a white colored pencil to highlight the image.

When stamping the image on a card base, I messed up the first try and hated to toss it out. Fortunately the panel with the circle cut covered up my stamping boo-boo so a second card was created using the messed up card front. Amazingly the circle I had cut was the perfect size to fit Altenew's Circled Greetings: Thanks die. The sentiment strip was stamped from Altenew's Gracious Peonies set on black cardstock and heat embossed with white embossing powder.  

Card 4 - Creating Mixed Media Backgrounds

To create this background we used the letter dies from Altenew Fine Alphabet die set and randomly placed them on a cardstock panel and cut them out. Once the panel was die cut we used Altenew Fresh Dye ink Autumn Blaze and swiped the ink on the panel then spritzed it with water to "blend" the ink out. Tania use shimmer spray instead of water. Then using a brayer and some turquiose paint we add the blue in a few areas. Once we were happy with that we then used embossing ink to dab in random places. We poured on gold embossing powder and then wiping off some of the embossing powder to allow the background colors to show. After it was heat embossed we then added some more of the blue paint using the brayer again. After the panel was complete it was then adhered to another white cardstock panel.

The sentiment is from Altenew's One Go: Solid Sentiment Strips Betterpress Plate and die.I wrapped the panel with some of the Altenew Metallic thread and adhered it to a card base using foam adhesive strips.

And finally cards 5 & 6 - Book Text Collage

I think these 2 are my favorites from this class. In this lesson we used made a collage on the background. Tania used old books that she tore pieces of the pages to create her background. Since I didn't have any old books to use I had to find an alternative and instead used some Tim Holtz Idea-ology Collage Papers - Archives in my stash to create my collage background.

After the collage medium was dry the cardstock panels were coated in a thin coating of gesso. After drying the panels with a heat tool we used Altenew Fresh Dye inks and put the ink on our surface and added water then dipped the panels into the ink. Drying in between the ink layers to get more texture and movement. Because I have taking a number of classes with Tiffany Solario on ink sprays, once I was happy with the way the panels looked I had to use my water bottle and flick some droplets, as well as splatter with some white on to the panels to create even more texture to them.

The panels were stamped with the floral image from Altenew Sulfur Cosmos and heat embossed in gold. The left panel sentiment was stamped and heat embossed in black and the right panel I used another of the sentiments from Altenew One Go: Solid Sentiment Strips Betterpress plate and die. They were then layered onto colored cardstock using foam adhesive before being adhered to the card bases.

Coloring Beyond Boundaries

Another Altenew Educator Certification Program level 3 class. I enjoyed this class and learning some coloring techniques.

Card 1 - Monochrome Shading Pencils

For this card we learned monochrome shading using pencils and blending stumps. With this technique you can create shading and shape to each of the flowers. Once the shading was complete we used black ink to splatter the card front. The card front is layered on a black layer of cardstock, then attached to a card base. 

Pencil is soft and will rub off with handling so it will need to be sealed. I used Krylon Kamar Varnish to seal the image.

Card 2 - Ink & Graphite Alchemy

For this card we used Altenew Sulfur Cosmos to stampthe image and used the coordinating stencil with Altenew Fresh Dye ink to color the image. Then using pencils we shaded in the image for additional depth. After creating a mask for the image we used the background stencil that is part of the coordinating stencil set for Sulfur Cosmos to create a background with blending brushes. Again we used black ink to splatter the card front before attaching it to a card base.

Card 3 - Metallic Stenciling Magic

For this card we used the Altenew Rustling Leaves Simple Coloring Stencil. Using the Altenew Sticky Mat to hold the black cardstock piece and the stencil. We then used the Altenew Metallic Watercolors and a foam applicator to "paint" in the leaves starting with the gold moving to the copper and then to the garnet to get a varigated blended look. Then using a thin brush and gold watercolor we painted in the stems for the leaves. Heat embossed the sentiment on the black panel. Layered the black piece on to a piece of Altenew Brushed Gold cardstock. 

For the background we used the Sulfur Cosmos stencil to embossing a white panel. Layered the embossed panel on to a card base and layered the gold and black panel on to the top. 

Card 4 - Metallic Watercolors

For this card we used the Rustling Leaves 3D embossing folder set off to one side of the card front. Using the metallic watercolor paint and a small brush we started at the top painting the leaves & stems and going from gold to jade and then to topaz slowly going from full color to a blended color by mixing the colors with each other. Using the 3 paint colors the card front panel was splattered.

We used a white piece of cardstock and blending the 3 paint colors. When that piece was dry we used the Altenew Birthday Wish die set to cut the sentiment. Using the Hero Arts circle dies I cut a small black circle to fit inside the embossed circle then layered the sentiment on top for a little bit of depth.

SUPPLIES USED

Stamps, Dies and Embossing: Altenew Sulfur Cosmos, Rustling Leaves Embossing Folder
Paper: Hammermill cardstock, Taylored Expressions cardstock, Neenah cardstock
Ink: Altenew Obsidian Pigment, Altenew Fresh Dye, Versamark
Misc: Altenew Metallic Watercolor, watercolor paint brush, Altenew Antique Gold embossing powder, Staedtler Mars Lumograph 10B pencil, blending stump, Altenew small and mini blending brushes, blending tool and foam, Krylon Kamar Varnish