I have always admired and loved all the ”makes” by Tim Holtz and his special makers! This weekend I finally gave it a try for myself!
OH WHAT FUN! AND ADDICTING!!
Over the last year and a half I have gotten things here and there for this but I picked up the Simon Says Stamp Limited Edition HALLOWEEN MIXED MEDIA Kit Bundle. It is a HUGE box of Ranger and Tim Holtz goodies.
Contents include: (bolded items used)
Continue reading
Welcome to the Altenew Certified Educators’ Blog Hop! You should have arrived here from Irina Fonina. If you want to start at the beginning go to https://wp.me/p6Dps1-erN
We are having a good time playing around with techniques or themes related to the first letter of our name. So many choices that will fit so many people…what would YOU chose if you had to do something based on your first letter? Please share in the comments. Send your creations to the link below to win!
My project is called POPPIES AND PATTERNS.
I was inspired by some simpler cards I had been seeing on Facebook from many people, including fellow educator, Tenia Nelson.
I chose the Painted Poppy Stamp and Die bundle, stamping the flowers in black and pairing it with just a splash of color.
WOW, OH, WOW, this is exciting to join in an official blog hop. Thank you so much for joining me today. I would love for you to subscribe to my page for other goodies along the way. But today, if you are following the hop, you should be coming from Helen Kalb . Please read on, and don’t forget to add a comment for a chance for a wonderful gift certificate from Altenew!!
–Coasters and Trivets
Continue readingThe long-awaited date for my Final AECP Workshop came on March 28, 2021. I invited seven ladies to join me on Zoom to make cards and work with alcohol inks. The wonderful people came with very different places in their crafting background. My two longtime friends, Jo and Lori, got me into scrapbooks 15 years ago but have limited to no experience with cardmaking and didn’t know Altenew at all. Sande and Mandi joined the AECP the same time I did and Sande is now a Certified Educator. Followed just behind her, Bridget was certified as an Educator. Sharon has just finished her Level 1 and Jill is a friend from a different group that was kind enough to join in. I owe a huge THANK YOU to each of them for the time and effort they put in…and for going out of their comfort range.
We used Yupo paper, Acetate, and Holographic paper. Many of them said they had the supplies needed but I sent everyone a small “kit” that included samples of theses three types of substrates and a mini distress mister labeled as alcohol. By doing this they could fill it with 91% alcohol and not get it confused with water. They supplied the remaining items including the alcohol inks, blending solution, and any other regular crafting items they might want to use.
Some of the ladies were very experienced with card making but no one had a great deal of knowledge about alcohol inks so we started from scratch by creating the “papers” we would use in the cards we would make. I LOVE ALCOHOL INKS and still have so much to learn about them, too, but I know for sure, they are addicting!! We chose our colors and created a couple of backgrounds on Yupo paper. I showed how to make an alcohol ink flower (see below) for control of sometimes uncontrollable ink. I also showed how the blending solution reacts with the ink, and how the 91% alcohol reacts differently with the ink. From there, we switched to the holographic paper – so many variations of backgrounds to get depending on the holographic design in the paper. Lastly, we inked up some acetate, making various colored sheets to die cut and create an acetate card, giving a stained glass effect. I use the term “backgrounds” loosely here because some of these turned into backgrounds and some of them we used by die cutting images.
We started simply, with an overall background and adding large word dies.
CARD 1
My example on Yupo Paper
Class Gallery
CARD 2
My example of alcohol ink on holographic paper:
Class Gallery
CARD 3
My example of Alcohol ink on acetate:
Class Gallery
Everyone did a terrific job getting 2-3 cards done and finishing out a bit on their own. I love the diversity of all the cards, colors, styles. So nice to see how everyone put their own spin on the techniques.
Bonus CARDS done with die cutting yupo or holographic papers
This has been a wonderful journey to get to this final Altenew Educators Certification Program Workshop! I have found great new friends in the program, been encouraged by them and by Erum and Virginia along the way. I have realized that I’ve only scratched the surface of what I can do in cardmaking. There is so much more to do and so much more fun to have! And I look forward to sharing my handmade cards with others to pass on the joy!
Thank you all for a great program and a great day!
Hugs, Penny
Hi all,
Just thought I would add in my entry to this month’s Inspiration Challenge. Great colors!
I used alcohol inks on holographic paper as a background to the lovely Cosmos Craft-a-Flower.
If you are interested in the supplies I used on a particular card, please email me. I have used products from Simon Says Stamps, Gina K Designs, My Favorite Things, and Altenew mostly.
Hope you have a great day —
Penny
Wow, this should be my last class before doing a two-hour workshop before becoming a full Altenew Educator. How exciting! I hope this makes the grade and I can prepare for a workshop.
In this class Tania Ahmed showed us how to use multiple mediums within one card. She covered quite a lot of territory and made what could be a mess into some beautiful works of art. From her class I chose to use the example of watercolor, embossing paste, and embossing powder. Here is a video of my process using these mediums:
Now to take this background and make it into a card. I had some tulle that was left from my wedding almost six years ago. It is purple and I thought that could be used on the card in some way to remember our love and could be part of my husband’s Valentine’s Day card. I tied some into a bow, and created a ribbon-like edge on the left side. I glued it down to the cardstock on the back then also glued some fun foam on top of it and mounted it onto a card base.
I cut the word ‘love’ from the Circled Greetings: Love Die three times and glued them together. I also cut the word out of Tim Holtz metallic lavender paper. I glued it onto the card front then added some pearls for embellishments and my card was finished.
Check out the shimmery close up view of this card and the bonus card below. I love the sparkle of the Translucent Pearl embossing powder.
Bonus card: I also tried to add some tulle to another similar background…made the same way as the video showed. This time the tulle was too much and I took it off. Instead, I wove together the Woven Heart Die out of the deep purple paper and added it to the front of the card with a few purple sequins to finish it off. I used the ‘Hugs’ from the Simple Greetings Die Set and cut the shadow in deep purple and the word in white –again stacking three on top. This time I also pressed the word into embossing ink and then dipped it into the Altenew Translucent Pearl embossing powder and heated it. Now it matched the diamond snowflakes on the card and sparkled.
This has been a great journey through AECP. I already have ideas for my two hour workshop so I hope this passes and sends me on the way. Thank you all for watching this process. I highly recommend taking all the classes in the Altenew Academy. You will learn sooo much!
Oh, what a lot of fun was this class. Lots of different information on using stencils in different ways. I wanted to do more videos but this set of classes packs in sooo much I ‘d have a forever video to capture its essence. Nicole Watt does an excellent job of teaching 7 different (plus) ways to use your stencils.
I will show you a few examples of most of these techniques but I will be focusing on the alcohol inks for this post. Just like Nicole, I LOVE alcohol inks. The re-inkers from Altenew work really well in any manner you might use alcohol inks.
Working with the stencils can be a bit tricky and very messy. Messy is part of the fun for me…some like to wear gloves but I have never found the alcohol inks to be that lasting that I felt I needed gloves. It is always a good idea to work on top of covered surface or in a box, though, to protect your crafting space from getting too messy. One of the major things of using alcohol inks is that you have very little control over the overall outcome, yet you can also get LOTS of backgrounds made quickly and easily and no two will be alike. Then you can use them either as backgrounds or die cut them for silhouettes or flowers or shapes or sentiments.
In Nicole’s class she uses photo paper rather than Yupo paper. She emphasizes that it should be a good quality photo paper – one where you touch the corner with your finger and it sticks a bit. I, too, have a lot of photo paper and rarely print my own pictures anymore so this is an excellent way to use something you might already have on hand.
The process is this:
In my examples below I used Altenew Deep Iris, Sea Glass, Ocean Waves, and Dessert Night.
Here are two of the cards I made with these backgrounds:
Also, here are other examples of cards from a few of the other lessons in this set:
Folded with Care 