Altenew Educator Programme – All About Layering 2

I spent the day in my craft room working away at some more cards for the second course I need to submit for my education certification attempt. 🙂

For this second course (All About Layering 2) I chose to use my magnificent Build-a-Flower Hyacinth stamp set from Altenew as it looks as good as the real thing, and I really enjoy the fragrance of real hyacinths and it is the middle of summer here so I miss mine.

This second course showcased different flower sets and focused on how to layer them perfectly although I am still struggling a little with the Hydrangeas, to be honest. This course also included some additional tips and tricks on adding dimension with texture paste, popping parts of the flower up using foam or similar, and generally made me want to try to take my card-making to another level. I feel as though this course helped me to expand my planning to include at least one extra element rather than having a single layer simple card. Don’t get me wrong – sometimes a beautifully clean and simple card is perfection, but I wanted to challenge myself to see what I could come up with.

I decided to use a mask to create the bowl for my flower – taking from my most recent hyacinth that was planted and grew one large stem with a very small secondary one. I used the Versatile Vases stencil set that is just too gorgeous to trace the image of the bowl and then fussy cut it out. I stenciled a little texture paste onto the bowl using a small dot stencil I have had in my stash forever and then used a blending brush to give it some colour to add interest.

I then set about stamping my images. I can sometimes struggle with knowing which colours to add together, and I find that the sets of inks that come together to be helpful. I used my colour family sets from Altenew for the pinks and greens, and used an orangy-brown for my floor.

I fussy cut my flowers and cut down the second stem severely to imitate a secondary bud growing on the main stem as I remember from my flower last year. I felt this gave it a realistic look and I placed my pieces down in such a way as to make it look like there were leaves behind and in front.

I popped some parts of the elements up using foam squares and glued the others flat on the card.

I feel that I have learned better how to stamp my layering elements in order to make sure they flow better and look more cohesive. It is not perfect, but it is the best one I have done yet. I can almost smell the hyacinth.

I added one of the sentiments in the Hyacinth stamp set as I think it will be a card for my friend and it fits.

Here is the finished item showing everything together.

I hope this has inspired you, and given you a moment of joy or escape from the day to day grind. Thank you for popping in, and I hope to see you all soon.