I recently met a crafty friend on line and we met up to craft together. She introduced me to a great Birch Press Layered die, Adora. I’ve loved Birch Press dies but just hadn't ever used them so I quickly grabbed three colors of paper out of my scrap stash and die cut them. The Adora die has a repeating heart pattern and after I cut out the patterns, I was left with all these colorful hearts. I didn't want to waste them so I decided to make some cards but needed white as a neutral to go with my color palette. I grabbed the Altenew Radial Hearts cover die which has a repeating heart pattern and cut out a piece of Neenah solar white. I saved all these heart pieces and decided to use them on a card. Well I ended up making 5 cards and would like to explain how I made them using dies and leftovers. Please read on and note that affiliate links are used in this post. If you decide to purchase the items through these links, I get a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support.

Since starting last November with the Altenew Educator Certification Program, I have made 42 cards, four pieces of home decor and one tag using supplies from Altenew. I’ve enjoyed this journey and every class I took through Altenew Academy. I am currently working my way through Level 3 Certification and this last class for the Altenew Educator Program was Sentiments with Impact. I looked forward to this class as cards need sentiments and having the right thing to say or the right way to say it sometimes gets lost behind the technique or the main image on the card. The instructor focused on using sentiments in different ways to make them the main focus on a card. I was intrigued by stacking sentiments and using different stamps that say the same thing to provide impact to the message. For today’s card I used small sentiments from four different Altenew stamp sets to create a background. Please continue reading to learn how I put together this card. For your convenience the materials I used are listed at the bottom of this post. Affiliate links are used at no cost to you. If you decide to purchase through these links I may receive a small commission thank you for your support.

Making shaker cards can be time consuming but the result is really worth it. For today's card, I was inspired by the Altenew course: With a twist, which focuses on some different takes on tried and true card making standards. Within the course, the instructor focused on using different color combinations, cutting out different parts of the card front to reveal images inside and making shaker elements on cards. For this card, I would like to show you how I put together a double shaker. A double shaker means that the shaker can be seen from both the front and inside of the card. Please read on for some tips on how to make this card.

Hero Arts has a monthly kit they sell which comes with a whole bunch of items. In April 2017, the kit was centered around stamps and dies resembling paper dolls from the 1950's. I purchased the kit because I didn't have any stamps like this although I was uncertain about how to use it. Recently, I was in need of a wedding card and felt that making a shaker wedding dress would be a different idea and a good use of the April stamp set.