Folded with Care

The second part of this Level 2 Challenge was to alter or upcycle something.  For this I played off the Scene Building lesson, taking four hard core tiles I’d had for a while and making them into coasters.  I wanted each one to stand alone as a scene but together make a picture.

To do this I took an 8”x8” piece of white cardstock and did a mock up of what I wanted. 

I used the Altenew Mountain Scene Stencil to create mountains along the top. I used varying Artist markers for the sky hoping to create a sunset. I took Artist Marker grays to color in the mountains.  I stamped a cabin from the Winter Wishes set.  I stamped a light house and boat from the Be a Lighthouse set and filled in with some Artist markers to create the water body plus the river that ran between the cabin and the mountains.  I colored in with Artist Markers the lighthouse and the cabin.  Then I filled in trees using the Mountain Scene Stencil again and this time using the three green multimedia inks.  For a quick and dirty mock up, I was good with this, knowing that the surface of the tiles was not porous as the paper is, I knew I would have to make some adjustments along the way. 

I started on the tiles with my mock up in front of me and using some double-sided tape, stuck my tiles together on my working surface so they wouldn’t move around on me as I worked on different areas. They were firmly planted!!  I dissected the picture working from the back or furthest in the distance to begin working.  But I couldn’t do the sky without the mountains.  I took the stencil and penciled in the mountains across the two top blocks.  Then used some Gina K masking paper to create the same mountains and cut them out.  I applied the masking over the penciled mountains so that my sky would show behind the mountains. 

To create the sky, I used 3 Altenew re-inkers – Warm Sunshine, Coral Berry and Dusk.  First, I put some yellow on with a paint brush added some coral berry over some of it, put some alcohol blending solution on my brush to help mix the colors and striate the sunset.  I did the same with the Dusk, mixing it some with the orange created by the other 2 colors.  With the mask in place over the mountains I didn’t need to worry about the mountains being sky colored (lol). I left the mask on and moved to another part of the scene while that dried.

I took off the bottom left square, put it in my Misti, and stamped the cabin and a couple of trees from the Winter Wishes set onto the square using Altenew Jet Black mixed media ink.  Then I took the lighthouse and boat from the Be a Lighthouse stamp set and stamped them on the bottom right square.  Since this is a pigment ink, I used my heat tool to dry the ink as much as possible.

Once dry, I colored parts of the light house and the cabin by tapping the Altenew artist markers in the area I wanted covered.  I found if I stroked the marker it didn’t show as much and when touching the black stamping the black ink would bleed.  Tapping worked well to fill in color but not smear the stamping.  Colors used on the cabin were Velvet, Rocky Stone, and Mango Smoothie.  The lighthouse used colors of Velvet, Mango Smoothie, Sand Dunes, Limestone, and Evergreen.

I worked on the water next mixing Altenew re-inkers of Sea Glass and Ocean Waves together, painting the body of water going into a river.  Again, I used blending solution as necessary to paint the water in place.  I did not do all of the river yet as I needed to add trees from the stencil.  The whole bottom needed to dry more and completely before I used the stencil again.

Letting the bottom set, I returned to the mountains and removed my masking.  I picked up the stencil and lined it up as I first did to draw the outlines.  This time I colored the mountains with Artist markers in Silver Stone and Industrial Diamond.

Back down to the bottom I used the stencil to put in trees…using the Altenew mixed media ink of Frayed Leaf, Forest Glades, and Evergreen.  Again, I was careful not to rub too hard with the ink over the black.  It is sooo, sooo different working on a non-porous surface than on cardstock.  I continued to layer the trees by the cabin and under the mountains until I was satisfied… sometimes going back and forth on the intensities of green ink to show as much dimension as possible.

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When the trees were done, I then finished out the water of the river behind the trees and cabin.  I used a brown (don’t remember which one) of the Artist markers to add some dirt in front of the cabin and edging the river and the “ocean” I created.  I added some Aqua Shimmer atop the water to make it sparkle. When all the painting was done, I just let it sit for a day or so to completely dry.

The final step was to seal the inks with a resin.    I watched lots of YouTube videos on resin and used the Ranger version since I had had that for a while also.  Some quick tips about resin – room temps are the best around 70 degrees Fahrenheit; pour equal amounts of resin and hardener into a plastic cup; stir gently but absolutely thoroughly until there are no “strings” in the mixture; let the mixture sit for a few minutes to help get out tiny bubbles (you know, like champagne); use a heat tool to go over surfaces to help the bubbles pop. I also found it worked much better to elevate each square on top of a cup so that any extra resin could drip off.  I didn’t do that at first and had to really work at trimming down the extra resin at the sides. The resin takes at least 3 days to fully cure.  Since I had goofed by not elevating the squares the first time, I lightly sanded down the surfaces of the resin where it was uneven – again YouTube to the rescue.  I added some painters tape to the bottoms so that if there were hardened drips they would come off when the tape was peeled off.  Cleaned up and ready to go I added a top coat of the resin and let them sit for several days.  Phew, that was a learning experience.  But I found I really liked the resin and thought I could get into that as well…. but probably won’t.

That finalized my Level 2 Challenge.  I learned a lot about a lot of mediums in this challenge.  I also learned to be a bit more creative with the actual cards.  I’d love to know your thoughts on the cards and the coasters.  The Altenew Educators Certification Program definitely puts you through your paces but I’ve completely enjoyed it all and truly stretched myself.  If you like improving your skills, please consider this program

So now, the question is –Am I ready for Level 3?