Bold and graphic card

AECP Level 1 final project

Hello and thank you for joining me on today's post. I have been working through the Altenew Educator Certification Program and have completed 10 lessons within the program and submitted a total of 10 posts with 19 card designs. I have been very inspired by the classes I have been taking on Altenewacademy.com. For today's card, I was issued a challenge to make a card that could be suitable for a masculine card or for a teenager and have the theme of either birthday or encouragement or congratulations. In building this card, I used techniques and inspiration from four different classes at Altenew Academy: For the guys, Easy Die Cutting, Let it shine and Easy Ink Blending. Please read along for how I put together this card.

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The concept

I carry this journal around with me everywhere. I sketch and write the techniques I’ll use and the supplies.

I haven't talked on this blog about how I design, but I typically pull inspiration from Pinerest, Instagram, stamp/die sets and coloring media. I do have a sketch journal. Right now I have this journal from Erin Condren. When I have an idea or technique I’d like to make into a card, I sketch out how the elements will go and I keep track of the colors and materials I use. Once I make a card, the idea goes out of my head so I tend to forget what I have done. This is why I have a gallery link on this blog and a section on Pinterest; to remind me of what I have created.
I sketched out a bold, graphic design which was inspired by the For the Guys class on Altenew Academy. I wanted to use Altenew Plaid Cover Die A+B as a background for this card.

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Building the Card

To give the die cuts some color, I took two pieces of Neenah Solar White 80lb cardstock and used Distress Inks on them. Both pieces had shades of blue; one piece with lighter blues and one with darker blues. On the dark blue piece I used: Dusty Concord, Blueprint sketch, Chipped sapphire, Faded jeans and Stormy sky. On the lighter blue panel I used: Salty ocean, Mermaid lagoon, Broken china, and Tumbled glass. In the Easy Ink Blending class, the instructor had recommended using the mini ink blending tool at an angle which helped give a smooth look to the blended pieces and minimize any harsh lines. 

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I then put Stick It adhesive to the back of these panels and to two pieces of just white cardstock. Stick It is a thin adhesive which will allow me to adhere these panels later without using glue or getting adhesive everywhere. The Stick It is thin so it will go through my Cuttlebug die cut machine without issues.

​After running the ​panels through the die cut machine with the Altenew Plaid Cover A+B dies, I removed all the smaller pieces and then adhered the white panels to a piece of colored cardstock cut to A2 size and then added the colored panels on top. This gave me two cards, each card with a blue die cut piece and a white die cut piece. These panels gave me the bold, graphic design I was looking for and great color from the Distress Inking. 

This is the light blue piece after die cutting with the Altenew Plaid Cover Die B. These pieces could be saved for an inlay project.

This is the darker blue piece die cut with plaid A. This panel was laid over a white piece cut with Plaid B and then both pieces were placed on top of a piece of coral cardstock. The inlay pieces are from the light blue inked piece.

This is the light blue piece die cut with Plaid B and on top of a white piece cut with Plaid A and both pieces placed on top of a piece of blue cardstock.

Finishing Touches

This panel uses Distress Inks and Distress Oxide Inks with Perfect Pearls to create a smooth but shiny finish.

Sometimes I come up with a background design but have trouble finishing the card or deciding about where to place sentiments. The Easy Die Cutting class gave me an idea about die cutting the sentiment and the Let it Shine class discussed image focal points and grounding images. I decided to die cut the main sentiment using Altenew Inline Alpha die set. The letters were die cut out 4 times and stacked on top of each other. The last layer of letters was die cut from a piece made by blending Distress Ink in Salty ocean, Mermaid lagoon, Peacock feathers, Evergreen bough, Mustard seed, and Broken china using a Distress Stencil brush. After drying the inks, I added Distress Oxide in Salty ocean and Broken china making sure to dry between layers. Distress Oxide has pigment properties making it more opaque than Distress Ink. This way the Distress Inks will show through but the Distress Oxides will be more prominent. After applying the Broken china, I added Perfect Pearls with a dry brush and then spritzed Tseukineko Shimmer Spray onto the panel. I then die cut out letters and stars. To separate the letters from the graphic background, I grounded the letters with a piece of vellum. The vellum is transparent allowing the background to show through but provides enough separation to have the sentiment pop. Using Hero Arts infinity circle dies, I die cut a 2 3/4” size circle out of vellum.

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To help the vellum circle to stand out and add some shine, I wanted to heat emboss the outside of the circle with gold embossing powder. But how to make a perfect line on the vellum? I made a stamp out of fun foam by taking the circle die I just used and one smaller to make a ring stamp out of the fun foam. After prepping the vellum with a powder tool, I then adhered that ring foam stamp to a block and stamped the image with Versamark ink and then heat embossed it with Hero Arts gold embossing powder. The vellum ring now stands out and has some nice shine. 

The vellum circles are 2 3/4” wide. The foam ring stamp was made by using two circle dies to cut out a piece of foam. The ring stamp was the adhered to a block to stamp the vellum circles with Versamark.

These vellum circles have been stamped with Versamark and then heat embossed with gold powder.

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After adhering the letters and sentiment strip onto the vellum, I used the Stick It to put a layer of adhesive all over the vellum. There is always debate about how to adhere vellum as the adhesive shows through. Well if there is an even layer of adhesive on the vellum, no adhesive will stand out! I put the circle on the panel and then added the WISH die cuts and a sentiment strip of “make a” from Hero Arts Birthday Celebrations. The “make a” was stamped with Hero Arts Deep Blue ink and then was clear heat embossed. I also added three stars and put Glossy Accents on top to give them dimension and shine. Then I adhered the whole panel to a top folding A2 sized card.

This is the inside sentiment.

This is the inside sentiment.

Thank you for joining me today. I hope this post gave you some different tricks to try and inspiration to build a graphic card. Please comment below on whether you liked the darker blue or lighter blue panel. Have a wonderful and crafty day.