Clean and Simple Boutique Cards

Today I am sharing a card I made for my next class in my certification progress – Clean and Simple Boutique Cards. (I am working my way through the Altenew Educator Certification Programme, and each step of the way I feel I am getting more and more knowledge, practice, and experience. It is a lovely way to improve your skill level and get input. 🙂 )

In this class, I learned a few ways to make a clean and simple card with an elevated pop. Clean and simple cards are always so elegant, but this class includes a few tips and tricks to include a special element to make them more interesting and elevate them to “boutique” level. I was particularly inspired to try them out, and I am sharing my best card here for you today. The CAS (Clean and Simple) feel is something that doesn’t always come easily to me.

I am currently enjoying using my glass bead gel which adds bling in a very subtle way (I am also learning that less is usually more) so I wanted to incorporate that. I used the glass bead gel through the vase stencil to give glass-feel without being over the top.

Of course, I wanted to put some flowers into my vase, and for this card, I chose the Stunning Cosmos Stamp Set. Cosmos flowers always remind me of family holidays when we were young – going to the sea. The sides of the roads would be full of cosmos as far as the eye could see, and cosmos flowers always make me feel happy and nostalgic.

In keeping it simple, I chose to have only two flowers in the vase. I think it works.

You can see that the moisture in the gel made the ink on the stems run a little bit, but it looks fine – almost as if you are seeing it through tick glass which accounts for the shading. Happy mistake 🙂

Here is a close-up photo of the glass bead gel while it is still wet – it looks milky, but dries to a lovely transparent shine.

Here is a close-up of what the beads look like when the gel dries completely:

Here is the final card.

Thank you for taking a look at my progress, I hope you had fun and were inspired. See you soon.