Clean and Simple

Clean & Simple Boutique Cards

For my next Altenew Educator Certification Program submission, we were challenged to make clean and simple cards. Clean and simple can be tough because those embellishments are just screaming to be adhered to your project. The toughest thing with clean and simple is less is more. The Altenew class, Clean and Simple Boutique Cards gave me some great ideas of how to achieve this difficult look. Using metallic elements and lots of white space lends to a great clean and simple card. Using Altenew's great floral sets helps because they come in such intricate and wonderful designs that you don't need much else on the card. Click below to read more about how I made this card.

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1) Choose a great image

For this card, I used Altenew Persian Motif stamp set. I had already colored in the images. In a previous post, I detailed out how I color on the go. For these floral images, I used Prismacolor Premier colored pencils. I chose to use the largest floral from this set. I love the details of these stamps and the loose flow of these images.

2) Tone on tone and lots of white

Clean and simple cards leave a lot of white space. I decided to partial emboss the card using the Cuttlebug Baby's Breath embossing folder. This gives some texture without adding bulk. I also ended up using the debossed side to minimize the card looking bulky. I added the 5 1/4" x 4" card front to a Hero Arts prescored A2 white card to keep the white on white theme. 

3) Use metallic elements

For a metallic element on the card, I wanted to use foil but in the interest of simplicity and time, I used some washi tape from my stash and added a gold foil strip between the debossed side of the paper and the unembossed side. This washi strip gives the card some extra shine without adding too much.

4) Minimalistic sentiment

For both of today's cards, I used sentiments from Altenew's Under the Cherry Blossom Tree stamp set which has some small typed sentiments. I stamped these in Momento Tuxedo black ink and then stamped over it with Versa Mark and added clear embossing powder to add a little shine. Inside the card I added a larger sentiment and used a border stamp from Altenew Hennah Elements stamp set for some flair.

I hope you enjoyed this clean and simple post today. Send me a comment as to which card you liked: the purple or blue. Have a wonderful day and I hope this inspired you to make your own clean and simple cards.