Folded with Care

WOW, this is my last class for the Level 1 of the Altenew Educators Certification Program…lovingly known as AECP. 

This last class is an amazing class combining several others into one.   In some ways this was simple yet it involved watercoloring which I have not done a lot with, so it still stretched my limits.  It was the perfect time to use the Altenew Pant-A-Flower Iris stamp.

The white 4” x 5 ½” base of the card was quick and easy, taking Altenew’s Ultraviolet ink cube, I scuffled ink directly to a plain white cardstock – very quickly the background was done setting the stage for the regal flower.

I started the flower by white heat embossing the stamp, but the outline wasn’t clear and the flower looked unfinished when I tried to paint it. Yes, it did contain the watercolor within the boundaries of the heat embossing, but the flower lost a lot of detail.  So, I redid it with Simon Says Stamps Intense Black ink.  Then squished some Altenew crisp dye ink Ultraviolet on my Tim Holtz media mat.  Using a water brush pen, I proceeded to pick up the purple color and paint my Iris.  Doing the same with the ink cube, I used Altenew Forest Glades ink for the leaves and stems.  As I colored both the flowers and the stems I moved around, letting one part dry before I went back adding more ink to get a deeper color. It took several additions to get the desired hues for this gorgeous creature.  All the time I left the center open so that I could use Altenew Maple Yellow in the center of the flower.  This is such a beautiful flower in the garden I wanted this to be special too. 

To help the yellow stand out I cut a bright yellow piece of cardstock to 3 5/8” x 4 7/8” which left just a tiny frame around the white cardstock of 3 ¾” x 4 ¾”…just enough to frame the Iris.

One of the tricks in this class was to edge the ink around the white edge so that it would also have some color framing it.  It was quick and easy to just rub the ink cube along all sides.  It is such a simple trick but one that adds a lot to the finished product, helping to highlight the purple of the flower against the yellow frame.  Once those were glued together, I added some strips of foam tape to the back and mounted onto the purple scuffled base.

The finishing glamor was added by using my Tonic Aqua Shimmer pen to the yellow on the Iris and adding 3 small purple Honey Bee gems to finish it off. 

The “Believe in you“ sentiment from the same stamp set as the flower is for me…and also for every other AECP participant and person reading this.  Thank you to Altenew for letting me experience these classes. 

Now to await my Level 1 Challenge………..