Partial fussy cutting

Altenew AECP Polychromatic

As part of the educatior program at Altenew Academy, I watch classes from Altenew and translate some of the great ideas into a card design. For the polychromatic class, the one piece of advice that kept sticking out to me was when stamping a multi colored pattern, have warm colors on one side of the card, cool colors on the other and in the middle of the card, use like colors to subtly blend all the colors together. The design today eluded me for a while because what I had wanted to do was build my own rainbow pattern. However, I persevered and while looking through my stash of unfinished card backgrounds, I came across an idea I had using Altenew Hennah elements stamp set. I like this stamp set because it has bold, graphic images that you can color in a variety of ways as well as small elements that can be used in different combinations. Please read on how I took an unfinished idea and used ideas from the Altenew Polychromatic class to put together this card.

Should I stay or should I go?

This is a tiny diatribe on my creative process. I get ideas in my head for card layouts, use of stamps or different techniques to try. These ideas sometimes get so stuck that I have to make the card because it’s all I can think about. In a recent post, I talked a little about my card idea notebook. When the ideas strike, I write and draw in this notebook so I can think through other things. And sometimes I have a lot more ideas than I can create at one time. Having the notebook allows me to revisit my creative ideas when I’m not feeling inspired. I also save backgrounds and projects that I thought were good ideas but don’t necessarily turn out that way. When I’m in the creative process, I will just go with an idea until I decide it is really awful and it can’t be salvaged. Initially building this card was one of those situations. So my advice is, just keep pushing through, record your ideas and hold onto those partially finished backgrounds because you may be inspired to look at them a different way.

Salvaging a prior idea

I was playing around with the Altenew Hennah elements stamp set. I thought stamping the medium flowers on the diagonal in Momento black tuxedo ink and coloring them in would be a good idea. I first drew a line about 1/3 way up on a piece of paper. I stamped the medium flower from the stamp set onto the line using Momento tuxedo black ink. I then masked off the flowers and stamped some leaves from the stamp set. I then added some green vines from the set all over the background. I didn’t like the direction the card was taking so I abandoned it.

The main idea I was using from the Polychromatic class was how to blend warm and cool colors so they don’t compete with each other. With these five flowers lined up in a row, I thought this would be a good way to practice this idea. When I grabbed this background out of my stash, the pink flower and leaves were already colored in. I was unsure of the medium but I think I had used Tombow dual brush markers. The other flowers I colored in with copics. For the purple flower I used BV markers in 01, 04 and 08. I thought the BV would compliment the blue flower next to it and keep a cool tone to that side of the card. The blue flower was colored with B markers in: 000, 04 and 06. The warm side of the card was colored with a red flower in Rs: 20, 21 and 29. The pink was already colored but I didn’t remember how. To transition between cool and warm, the center flower was colored in yellow/greens. The copics on this center flower were YGs in: 03, 21 and Y11. The flowers blend well and the color transitions from warm to cool so even though the colors are bright, they are not fighting with each other.

Assembling the card

Although I must have had some idea when I stamped bright green vines all over a quarter of the card panel, these vines were just not working now. I fussy cut out the flowers so they were hanging off the edge. I then cut down the white section so there wouldn’t be such a contrast between the card base and panel. After fussy cutting, take a black marker and trace over the edges to smooth out any rough cuts.

The fussy cut panel was mounted onto a top folding A2 card that had been spritzed with Imagine Crafts shimmer spray to add subtle shine. I then added Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen over the flowers and leaves. The sentiment was cut from black cardstock that had been sprayed with the shimmer spray. The sentiment is from Right at Home Scripty Greetings die set. I used Quikie Glue Pen to adhere four sentiments together which adds some dimension to the card. The final touch was Honey Bee rainbow rhinestones to the white part of the panel and Swarovski crystals to the centers of the flowers. These gems added some really stunning shine to this simple card design.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Let me know in the comments below about your journey from idea to project and what happens when your idea just doesn’t work. Have a crafty day!